show me your fury 2
by slash mania
Summary: Not long after the completion of the Fischer job, word goes around the dreamshare community that there is one persistent, horrible nightmare making the rounds in the dreams of furycrafters, dreamsharers and non-dreamsharers alike. These dreams all share one thing in common and that thing is called the Vord. Prepare for the infestation!
1. Chapter 1

A.N- And this is a story that definitely belongs in the _show me your fury_ universe but doesn't have an awesome title of its own yet. Maybe I'll change it later, maybe I won't. This was the product of a frustrated November. Editing isn't amazing so I'll probably have to sweep through it and make silly corrections that I've missed because FINALS! Enjoy!

Disclaimer: I don't own Inception and I don't own Codex Alera, I just wrote one decent fanfic that concerns the two.

Arthur was standing in front of a screen, the carefully assembled slides projected there appearing to glow across the front of his shirt- the graphics representing a human figure calling an air fury and the process of taking flight using said air fury.

"Now, I know that it seems counter-intuitive to do so, but you must create a shield before you _and_ behind you. For those who have windcrafted for awhile or if the crafter has a great ability with that element, the shielding becomes instinctive."

Arthur stepped away from the screen and used a laser pointer to put greater emphasis on what he was teaching his two students. A red dot appeared on the projection screen.

"As you can see," Arthur began, first indicating the fury depicted on the screen, which for the sake of offering something relatable to his two students, he'd used a depiction of his own wolf shaped wind fury, Spot. Even the line drawing of his crouching wolf appeared fierce and strong. "The fury must be capable of manifesting for true flight, like an earthcrafter's need of a manifest earth fury for battling against other furies. But we could argue the Imposed versus Naturalist theories of crafting all day." Arthur smiled and pressed another button on the laser pointer, so that the slide changed to a figure flying without a visible fury at all. "Remind me what the Imposed theory is, Phillipa?"

Barely ten years old, little Phillipa Cobb almost shot out of her chair, hand raised even though she had been called on directly. She waved her hand anyway, smiling at her uncle.

"Oh, oh! It's the theory that the forms our furies take are due to the things we _think_ our furies should look like and be capable of."

Arthur nodded, satisfied with the answer. Then he spoke to his second student.

"And what about the Naturalist theory," Arthur asked, his voice warming a little more as he spoke, "Mr. Eames?"

The forger crossed his arms over his chest and considered Arthur's question- the man had gone over the theories with him before holding the class. They'd had arguments for and against, but both knew that neither was exactly right or wrong- it just depended on how one crafter looked at it.

"The Naturalist theory states that furies have shapes and personalities that are different from other furies. That these furies are more likely to be discovered in more rural, uncultivated areas where they haven't bonded with many crafters."

"Correct."

Though Eames said nothing in response, it was clear to Arthur that the man was so _pleased_ with Arthur's approval, no doubt the forger would be able to sense that too with his water fury.

Arthur turned off the projector, put away the screen, and rolled up his sleeves.

"Well, it looks like we've done all that we can with talk of theories and showing slides. I think you're both ready for a practical application of windcrafting."

Phillipa began to cheer, nearly flying out of her seat to hug her uncle around the waist. Arthur ruffled her hair with one hand and extended the other towards the still seated forger.

"Let's go outside and practice."

* * *

Eames trusted Arthur explicitly. Their long separation, their soppy-sweet adoring and worrying, but being too skittish to begin anything again, had been broken off by the occurrence of the Fischer Job; their completion of the first (but really _second_ inception) ever brought them together and reignited the old feelings that never went away. The fire had sunk low but the embers were still hot, needing just a little more fuel to burn bright again.

And now they were together and better than ever- Cobb was back with his children and Arthur was free to be with Eames whenever he wanted.

Except when a certain child needed her flying lessons from her uncle…and that was when Arthur had encouraged Eames to try to augment his flying- mainly taking it from a probability of 0 to 1. Arthur had led Eames through the process of finding another air fury, one that was strong enough to manifest and give the forger a chance at flying with Arthur.

But that didn't mean that Eames wasn't worried about the entire process. Would he remember all the steps? Would his fury even do as he asked? He had a mental image of falling from a great height and breaking every bone in his body.

Eames swallowed hard and forced that irrational worry down- he pressed his hand against his old watch. It was clunky and made of metal, of course, so he'd be able to use his metalcrafting for calm and logical thinking. It wasn't the watch that Arthur had gotten him for his birthday. No, that was a _diving watch_. It was great; it was made with corrosion resistant material for the watch band and crystal watch face, was obviously waterproof, and a hardened mineral glass watch crystal.

It was the perfect watch for a watercrafter to wear, just in case they had to take a sudden dip. Eames had ruined many things like watches, cell phones, and wallets, by escaping into the element his furycrafting was most powerful in.

But the area around Cobb's house wasn't near to any water, happened to have neighbors who live far enough away that they wouldn't exactly notice the two men and small girl practicing flying.

It also helped that Arthur had thought to teach them how to hide their presence using windcrafting, how to create a veil.

But to reduce the likelihood of them all being noticed at once, Eames offered to go second and let Phillipa take the first run.

"You can do it, honey!" shouted Cobb from Eames's left, not noticing how the forger flinched at the noise.

"She's not even in the air yet, Cobb," Eames was quick to point out, rubbing at his left ear for a second.

"I can't help it. I'm excited!"

"Yeah, I couldn't tell," Eames said in a deadpan that would have done Arthur proud.

Cobb looked over at Eames for a moment, weighing his comment and deciding that it _did_ sound like sarcasm.

"It's okay to be worried."

"I know."

"No, really, you hadn't gotten there the first time they made Arthur fly- it was brutal."

Eames bit the inside of his cheek and tried to not say the first thing on his mind. He'd wait till Phillipa was in the air and couldn't hear what was said to her father. It might not be a good thing for Phillipa to hear Eames's opinions about her father; that he was a jerk, insensitive, and crazy.

So instead of saying any of those things, Eames agreed with Cobb as they stood side by side in the yard.

"It was bad because they were testing the limits of abilities they didn't understand."

Eames knew very well what had been done in the military dreamshare program. That when they discovered the furycrafting which lain dormant in certain soldiers was awakened after using the PASIV, they had to discover what their newly augmented soldiers were capable of. It was, as Cobb said, brutal. Eames came from the British Army, was on transfer to the Americans because of his own crafting abilities which they _believed_ had been revealed through their PASIV. It didn't mean that Eames ended up correcting them, because that would have led to all sorts of uncomfortable questions about his family and their furycrafting abilities that had gone on unchecked and hidden from the rest of the world.

It made him an oddity. But that was alright. On Cobb's team, even though the man himself wasn't taking part in jobs anymore, where everyone had some crafting, odd was normal and that was fine.

Arthur had told Eames about the furycrafting experiments that had been done on the strongest crafters; that Arthur had been buried alive for his earthcrafting, that Arthur's head had been forced underwater and he'd been asked to breathe deep for his watercrafting, and that he had been ripped away from his wind fury and tumbled end over end to the ground when some ass had broken Arthur's windstream with a handful of thrown salt.

Eames had similar experiences but things became much better when he had been paired with Arthur so long ago, so they could help each other develop their crafting and become better- the fact that it generally just meant they spent a lot of time together doing stuff that wasn't _just_ furycrafting was a bonus. And the whole 'don't ask, don't tell thing' was the double-edged sword that offended as much as it protected them, as long as they kept their romantic relationship private.

But Eames was getting away from himself now. He had to focus on the flying lessen. He had made a private oath to himself. He woke up that morning, left Arthur to softly snore to himself for another twenty minutes, comfortably curled up in their warm bed, stood before the bathroom mirror and said, "I will not be shown up by a _child_."

So Eames watched as Arthur stood a few feet away from Phillipa and showed her his hands, asking her to do the same. Perfectly audible from the distance they were standing, both Eames and Cobb could hear Arthur, too.

"Are your hands clean? No dust, no dirt?"

Phillipa was nodding vigorously, showing him her clean palms, the little crescent moons of her short fingernails.

"Do you know why it's important to make sure there's no dirt on you when you try to fly?"

Phillipa nodded again, showing him that her clothes were nice and clean, doing a little twirl to get that over with faster.

"I can't dig in the dirt or get stuck in the mud because my fury won't be able to hear me. Because earth is against air."

Arthur nodded his approval. "Tell me all of them, just so I remember?"

Phillipa laughed at him, her funny uncle Arthur! "But how could you forget? You know everything!"

"Humor me. Tell me that you know and then we'll start."

Phillipa nodded and began to recite them. "The elements can be canceled out by each other. Earth against air stops flying, but air against earth can stop an earthcrafter from drawing their strength from the ground, like if you pick them up and make them fly!"

Arthur nodded and gestured for her to continue.

"Fire can stop water, like making it so a watercrafter can't contact their water furies to sense emotions or heal. But water can put out fire, too. Metal and wood are kind of hard to describe, because you could put a metalcrafter in a wooden box or cage and they wouldn't be able to call to their metal furies or a woodcrafter wouldn't be able to call to their wood furies if they were wrapped in chains, even if they were left in the middle of a greenhouse!"

"Good. Your basic take away from this is that if you want to fly you must make sure that you aren't covered in dirt or mud. You also have to be careful around salt. If you _ever_ see someone trying to throw salt at you or your fury while you're flying, you have to dive out of the way, okay?"

Phillipa already knew these things. This was a part of Aircrafter 101, as Arthur jokingly called it.

It appeared that they were ready to get started.

"You can do it, Phillipa!" Cobb decided that shouting encouragement to his daughter was absolutely necessary the moment Arthur had asked her to concentrate.

Arthur, shot a look over his shoulder, glared at Cobb, and then made a quick gesture with one hand, one that Eames was familiar with.

A familiar voice, suddenly close to his ear whispered, _"I'm going to murder him if he distracts her one more time, Eames."_

Arthur had windcrafted his voice to Eames, so softly and carefully that Eames doubted that either of the Cobbs was aware of this conversation. It was a subtle crafting, but in his efforts to teach his two students better, Arthur had continued to practice, to sharpen his own skills, too.

Eames didn't want Cobb to know that he was being spoken about, so he said, in a very soft undertone, "On it."

Then the crafting was broken.

Cobb must have noticed something happening, but had been unable to put his finger on _what_.

"Shut up, Cobb," Eames said, before the man could begin to be more annoying than necessary. Sure, he knew that this was a big day for him as a father. That Cobb was really proud of his daughter, but if he tried to go back in his house and come back with a pot and pan so he could beat them together like an obnoxious parent at a graduation ceremony, Eames was going to smack him. No, punch him. Wait, the child was there, that wasn't a nice thing for a kid to witness.

Eames resorted to using his words, being polite about it.

"Shut up, Cobb," Eames repeated, but very pointedly tacked on "please" at the end. Cobb did shut up, but Eames was certain that it wasn't because of his use of the magic word. This was confirmed when he looked back in Arthur and Phillipa's direction.

Phillipa was calling her fury. Arthur had been there when it happened the very first time, when Phillipa first bonded with this stronger air fury. It wasn't all that long ago; it happened on a recent visit and this new claiming of a fury had prompted this flying lesson.

"She just-," Arthur had been at a loss for words that night as he cuddled against Eames's side in bed, the lights turned down low. "She just reached out her hand and called to it. It wasn't bound to her will so much as it willingly agreed to join up with her."

"What did it look like? What shape did it take?" Eames had asked.

"It was hard to see at first, but it resolved itself into something with wings. That was the first impression I got of it- something with massive wings made from this swirling gust of wind. It looked like an osprey."

A bird of prey, the shape her fury had taken was one that would be more than capable of protecting her and since it was so powerful, it would also grant Phillipa the ability to fly like her uncle. And maybe since both of their wind furies were hunters, they'd get along for this lesson.

The nameless osprey, who called with a sound like the shrieking of the wind in a storm, appeared fully formed, two feet high with an almost six foot wingspan. Once called to into visibility by Phillipa, the osprey shaped fury awaited her commands.

Arthur demonstrated for Phillipa.

"Spot," the point man said, confident in his ability and that of his fury. Instead of prowling around Arthur, the wolf shaped fury softly growled at his side, waiting for Arthur's next order. Arthur didn't waste any time. The point man jumped and called on his fury with one word. Arthur said, "UP!"

Immediately, the wolf dispersed, becoming a swirling windstream which appeared just under Arthur's feet, keeping him aloft and steady. The point man was hovering, arms away from his body and extended. By moving one hand or the other, Arthur would move from side to side or raise his arms to go higher, kicking up the leaves that Cobb had forgotten to rake up. The windstream beneath him remained just as steady, sending leaves and particulate matter flying around the area.

Phillipa was already shielding her eyes but not doing anything with her fury.

"Come on, Phillipa," Arthur called over the noise his fury made in keeping him aloft. "Look at how my fury is shielding my eyes from what's being kicked up into the air."

Eames, from his position, couldn't really tell. Maybe if he was the one standing just in front of Arthur, he'd see the movement of the fury through the air? But, Phillipa had stopped shading her eyes and actually _looked_ at her uncle who continued to hover before her. Her eyes actually widened and it appeared that she had caught on to what he was saying.

She smiled and laughed, immediately turning to her osprey shaped fury and calling to it! But she did one thing different than Arthur- instead of jumping in the air, she ran past him and took a flying leap into the air!

"Come on!" she yelled to her fury, almost shocked when the fury's form dispersed like Spot's and returned as a powerful windstream just under her feet…and then she was _flying_.

The fury had gathered beneath her and without any obvious directions from Phillipa, angled her body upwards, straightening her out a little more so that she flew in a graceful arc, coming to a stop near to Arthur, who had watched her carefully, ready to intervene if he must.

"Like that?" She was asking him over the sound of their combined windstreams. "Like that? Did I do it right?"

Arthur was nodding his head, reaching out to ruffle her already wind mussed hair.

"Flying low to the ground is harder, you consume more energy. If you promise to stay close to me, I'll take you up higher!"

Phillipa nodded quickly and waited for further instructions. "My shielding? Is it okay? I looked at yours and thought that I wouldn't get it on the first try but…" Phillipa reached out her hand and encountered the shield before her, the one in the back too.

"For some it's natural. Let's go!"

And then they shot upwards so fast, Eames got that feeling of being in an elevator that's going up, that somehow his stomach had been left behind on the lower floors.

He let out a shaky breath and noticed that Cobb was watching the sky, worrying his bottom lip with his teeth.

"Want a beer?" asked Cobb, gesturing to a small cooler he had brought for just this situation. The water-starved grass practically crunched underfoot as Cobb knelt down and opened the cooler, pulling one out for himself and waiting for Eames's answer.

Eames shook his head. "No, thanks. I don't want to learn what drunken flying is like."

"I'll have one," Cobb said, standing up and cracking the lid on one. He took a deep drink. "I didn't think it would be so…"

"Fun?"

"Good god, terrifying."

"But you watched Arthur fly all the time!"

Cobb squinted at Eames.

"Arthur isn't one of my babies."

"Thank god," Eames said, keeping his eyes heavenward, wondering if he'd see the pair of windcrafters or if they'd be too far up.

* * *

When they came back down, Phillipa's hair was an absolute mess and would no doubt require a lot of patient care to untangle and comb.

Her father had wrapped her up in his arms, exclaiming, "You're so _cold!_ How did you get so cold?"

Phillipa, who didn't care about the new crow's nest of tangled brunette hair atop her head, leaned in close and said in a voice full of wonder, "We went up really high, Daddy! Like really, really high! We couldn't even see you from that high up!"

Cobb immediately looked at Arthur for confirmation, narrow eyed and protective. "How high was high, Arthur? I mean, you could have gotten hit by a plane!"

Arthur shook his head, allowing Eames to come forwards and fuss over him- Arthur didn't need Eames to smooth out the wrinkles of his shirt or to warm his ice-cold hands for him, taking the point man's hands in his own and gently breathing on them. They both knew that Arthur's watercrafting would have given him a very small amount of relief from the cold by reducing his sensation of cold or by causing his blood to flow steadily throughout his body. It didn't change the fact that it still felt nice.

"No, Cobb. Planes fly at about 40,000 feet. We were veiled and flying just above that. A decent distance away from any pilot's notice, I promise."

Cobb's eyes narrowed and he stared at Arthur, as if the point man was going to suddenly breakdown and tell Cobb everything he wanted to know.

"You're going to want to warm her up and take care of that hair," Arthur advised.

"Can I have some hot chocolate, Daddy?"

Cobb was torn between interrogating his former point man or getting his daughter back into the house where it was warm.

"She's going to want me to gel her hair after this, isn't she?" Cobb almost sulked.

Arthur raised his eyebrows. "It's practical if you spend a lot of time flying. I'll talk her around to wearing a hat. One with a little strap beneath her chin so it doesn't fly off."

Cobb was already gathering Phillipa up into his arms, the former extractor looking just a little awkward with his arms full of gangly pre-teen daughter. She was resting her head against her father's chest, already looking a little tired, waiting for her father to walk her back home.

"I would prefer a helmet."

"That wouldn't make her very aerodynamic, Cobb."

"But it would make her safe!"

Arthur didn't want to bring up the fact that a helmet would be useless if Phillipa fell from a height of 40,000 feet. It would have as good an effect as wrapping an egg in tissue paper.

Thankfully, Arthur didn't have to say anything when there was an insistent child still waiting to be taken home.

"Daddy?"

Cobb looked down at the child he carried and smiled.

"Hey, you did great up there, honey! Let's get you home, okay?"

Phillipa nodded and Cobb actually began to carry her homewards, calling over his shoulder to Arthur and Eames, "Thanks! I hope I can call on you guys for earthcrafting lessons for James next?"

Eames, who hadn't let go of Arthur's hands, stopped breathing on them so he could press a kiss against the other man's fingers.

"You're not so chilly, Arthur," Eames commented, noticing how Arthur's fingers weren't white with cold anymore.

"Can't beat everyone's first impression of me, now can I?"

Eames dragged him in closer, removing his hands from Arthur's to pull the man in for a hug.

"You should have worn a coat," Eames chided, resting his chin against Arthur's shoulder.

"And fry when I get back down?"

Arthur was right; it was the middle of a sweltering summer in California.

"Something light-weight that will keep you a little warm while you avoid airplanes."

Arthur snorted. "I didn't just _avoid_ the planes."

"The planes avoided you, then?"

Arthur shrugged a little. "Why not, I'm not just the best point man."

They could both agree that Arthur had many talents; from his work as a point man, to his skills as an aircrafter, Arthur never failed to amaze Eames.

"She was good, wasn't she?"

Arthur nodded. "She took to it naturally. Like a duck to water. Like I'm sure you're going to once we practice."

Eames didn't stiffen up or do anything else that would suggest he had gotten frightened. Besides, if that was the case, Arthur would know it in a second because of his crafting. Not that he'd be so obviously keeping the line open, so to speak. It was difficult for a watercrafter to be so open at all times- sure, they were alone right now, but Arthur wouldn't have done so in a crowd where the jumbled riot of emotions from passersby would be deafening to his ears, abrasive to his skin, something that shouldn't be felt on such a level but was, because of the strength of their crafting.

But he tried to keep the line open for Eames, always. So that they always understood each other. And because Eames had his hands pressed against the man's body, he could tell with just as much certainty what Arthur was feeling.

The little threads of _worry_ were running through his previously sunny emotional atmosphere.

"If you're not ready, we don't have to," was what Arthur whispered against Eames's neck, nestled there, comfortable and happy with his two feet on the ground. Almost as if he was showing Eames that he was fine with it.

Eames pushed away, just a little bit, just enough. "We can at least try, darling. I'm not a quitter."

Rather than say anything like 'I never said you were' or 'If you're absolutely certain' or 'You really, really, don't have to- let's go make out against that tree because Cobb's not around', Arthur nodded and stepped away from Eames.

"You understand all the theories."

Eames nodded.

"You've seen my notes, my PowerPoint presentations, and have _watched_ me fly multiple times."

Once again, Eames nodded.

"But doing it yourself is a little harder. I know that you are skilled, that you listen, and I trust that you'll take any criticisms or advice I have seriously. I want you to do better than just understand the theory, I want you to feel it in your bones. This is part of the trouble with learning any furycrafting when we're older. It's like we experience this strange learning curve…I don't want you to have _my_ experience learning to fly." Arthur's back straightened and he looked Eames in the eye, serious.

"I'm trusting you to tell me when you've had enough, if you've been harmed, or if you need further instructions. Some things will become second nature to you while others will be lessons harder learned."

Eames smiled, just a little. "Are you feeling protective of me?"

Arthur blushed and narrowed his eyes. "So what if I am?"

Eames reached out and pinched Arthur's cheek. "You have no idea how sweet that is."

With one cheek pinched between Eames's fingers, Arthur's face lost some of its point mannishness- he fought not to smile and failed, dimpling. He smacked Eames's hand away and asked that he focus.

"You watched mine and Phillipa's examples. You could either jump and command your fury to create the windstream beneath your feet or do as Phillipa did and try after a running jump. Do whichever feels comfortable. But first, you need to make sure your fury can hear you. Call to it."

Eames did as he had practiced since he had claimed his newest fury. He imagined her in his mind's eye (yes, because he felt that his wind fury had a distinctly _feminine_ feeling to her) and tried to recall the shape she'd appeared to him as. Not all wind furies took the shape of things capable of flight- some looked like horses, some looked like Arthur's wolf. If Eames listened to Arthur's descriptions of the theories, there were some who pictured what they thought they should see and it was so, or the shape and personality of the furies was dictated by the area they were found and bonded with their crafter.

His fury was lovely and strong, he knew that much at once when she found him. Because that was what it felt like to him, just like Arthur had described it, just like it happened for him and his water fury.

Eames's new wind fury was a cat. At first, he thought that his fury was displaying a very good sense of humor, considering that his windcrafting teacher had a wind fury shaped like a large, scary canine. She also made it a point to greet Arthur when she could- twinning around his legs, doing what should have been purring, but really sounded like the pleasant sort of breeze you hear through the trees, sometimes. It's a whispering, sort of alluring sound.

The first time, it didn't take long for Spot to manifest, growling and angry at this intrusive feline wind fury that dared to encroach on his territory; that dared to encroach on his _Arthur!_

"Down!" Arthur had commanded, filling his voice with that particular tone that dogs, even dogs that were truly just barely domesticated canine shaped elemental, sit and obey. Spot did as he was asked, but growled at the cat each time she appeared.

After working hard with Arthur and with Spot, the furies had come to know each other rather well and understood that it didn't help anyone if they fought. This time, there was peace between them.

Eames's fury still didn't have a name. But still he called to her. When he was sure, when he felt that gathering of energy, when he felt the pressure of the wind fury surrounding him, waiting for him to do something- that was when he jumped, trusting his fury to do as he silently asked her to.

 _I want to go up_ , was what Eames thought.

And just like that, his deceptively powerful fury gathered beneath and around him as a shapeless column of wind, forcing Eames to stay aloft. At first, Eames leaned to far forwards.

"Careful, keep your center of gravity and remain upright."

Eames nodded shortly and kept his arms extended away from his sides, hands open, trying to project the calm he didn't feel because he was separated from the earth.

But he wasn't falling. He was managing to stay upright with his fury beneath him, nice and steady.

Remembering how Arthur could move from side to side, Eames tried it. First hesitantly and then with greater certainty, Eames sort of swayed from side to side without falling face first from a height of a little over two feet in the air.

He chanced looking at Arthur. The point man was nodding, smiling and appeared to be encouraged by Eames's progress.

"Do you want to try going a bit higher with me? I promise that once you practice flying you don't truly forget the way to do it. It's a lot like riding a bike."

 _"_ _Yes!"_

Without another word, Arthur jumped up in the air where his fury collected beneath his body and created a windstream so calm and quiet, it was like Arthur had just decided to fly without fanfare.

Eames was almost jealous of the ease that Arthur did such things, but had to remind himself that Arthur had been flying for much longer than he had. That there was a way of learning to do it. That _he_ would do it!

And because Arthur's flight was so quiet when compared to Eames's, the forger could hear that the other man was humming to himself. Something catchy and familiar…

"Really?" Eames asked, reaching out to grab for Arthur's wrist so he could tug the point man closer to him without disrupting or cutting off either of their windstreams. "You're really going to romance me with a little Sinatra?"

" _Come Fly With Me_ is a classic. And of course, you damn well know that the angel's cheer because we're together."

"I do, too," Eames assured Arthur. "You should hear me cheering for us sometime, darling." And then Eames began his cheer. " _Arthur and Eames, Arthur and Eames, they're the ones who rob your dreams. You might cry cause it's not fair and they'll remain beyond compare!"_

"That's not bad," Arthur said as he leaned in closer to place a very quick kiss against Eames's half-open mouth, the forger still smiling over his own silly cheer. "Well, for something you've clearly based on the Treat or Treat Rhyme."

"Really? Damn, I thought I had something clever there!"

"No one has to know that, Mr. Eames. _Cause we're Arthur and Eames, Arthur and Eames, we're the ones who rob their dreams._ "

"Your," Eames corrected softly.

"No, no. If we're doing the cheer by ourselves and no one's listening in, we should change _your_ to _their_. Because we don't rob each other's dreams. It wouldn't be ethical."

"And you'd murder me."

"Only a little."

"I'm probably going to ask you to cross-stitch that rhyme so I can hang it up somewhere."

"Next to the one that says _show me your fury_?"

"Possibly."

Arthur gave him another kiss, just one, and then pulled away, leaning back and angling his body as he raised his hands up from his sides, encouraging his fury to lift him up higher.

"Then you'll have to show me how good you're at flying, Mr. Eames. Try and catch me!"

Two seconds had barely passed when Arthur seemed to vanish under an aircrafted veil and shot upwards so quickly his fury seemed to _howl!_

"No you don't!" Eames shouted after him, doing as Arthur had; Eames leaned forwards, feeling his fury move into place to adjust, to tilt his body at the proper angle. When he raised his arms up from his sides, his fury began to propel him upwards, following a sweeping curve that would take him upwards but give him time to perfect his shielding – the one in front and the one in back. Once he was certain, Eames, feeling the coiling potential of his fury, encouraged her.

"Let's go," he said to his fury, amazed that he could hear himself over the sound of the column of wind supporting his body as if he weighed nothing at all. "Let's find him!"

Without another word, Eames flew. Not the bounding hops or halfhearted lunges through the air that he'd made before, but honest to god _flight_.

Eames, feeling certain of his crafting, feeling comfortable in his growing abilities, rose higher and higher, now keeping his arms pressed against his sides and his eyes open for just a hint of the point man.

He heard a voice. It sounded so close to him, though through his watercrafting, Eames knew that there wasn't anyone near enough to be speaking to him. And the voice belonged to Arthur.

" _I'm thinking of giving you a very nice reward if you can spot me,"_ Arthur said using his windcrafting. His voice was laced with a throaty, masculine chuckle, something that almost always pricked Eames's interest. It was something related to Arthur and just Arthur alone- it was Arthur's sex appeal divided from his earthcrafting which could most definitely leave Eames's brain a puddle of mush even as he was hard as a rock. This was where Arthur as a talented and successful man became one of Eames's favorite things. He almost wanted Arthur to be so well hidden to prove the man's competence, which happened to be one of the sexiest things about him.

Eames thought his way through it, thinking about everything that Arthur had taught him about aircrafting while they practiced for this day. An aircrafted message was easy to tamper with or waylay. In the real world, when using an aircrafting for messages, the crafter had to see the person they were trying to give the message to…that meant Arthur could be anywhere within range of the message, which wasn't very far in the first place. It was why watercrafting was a little more reliable.

Eames directed his fury to rotate him on the spot, wreathed as they were in thick clouds as big and fluffy as marshmallows. He couldn't see anyone watching him.

But he could hear Arthur still.

 _"_ _Warmer."_

Eames instructed his fury to hold his position before moving forwards, waiting to hear something else from Arthur.

 _"_ _Little warmer."_

Eames still looked around, not sure where Arthur was hiding. He extended his watercrafting senses, curious if he'd sense him while he was still so far away.

As soon as he asked his water fury to stop shielding him, this feeling of barely suppressed mirth nearly hit Eames with all the force of sledgehammer right between the eyes.

 _That_ was the moment that Arthur erupted from a nearby cloudbank, his clothes speckled with the water vapor held with the clouds. The shock was just enough for Eames to forget to control his fury- his concentration went out or a second then two, and then his windstream abruptly faltered.

And then Eames began to fall.

At first, he did nothing. What could he do? He had no idea how to call back his fury before he began to drop like a rock, the air whistling around him as he he fell. He was consumed with this horrible feeling, the feeling he always had when he thought about his poor aircrafting skills.

That it would be the death of him, that he wasn't meant to fly.

He had fallen no more than five or six feet and they were already high enough for that to not make much of a difference- Eames would break as many bones when he hit the ground even if he fell six feet lower rather than six feet higher, that was for sure.

The difference was he had a talented and quick aircrafter supervising. As soon as Arthur saw him begin to fall, the point man directed his fury to take him down. He pressed his arms against his sides and went down fast, almost slipping by Eames, who flailed his arms as he fell, making himself spin unintentionally. What he hadn't noticed before was just how _cold_ it was. He hadn't noticed before, and maybe part of it had been held away from him because of his shielding. In the few seconds he'd been falling, Arthur had already made it to the proper position, his wind fury created a damned gust of wind so strong that it almost cushioned Eames midair while Arthur rode his column of air upwards to he could pluck Eames out of the sky and drag him closer to his body, supporting them both with ease.

"I'm sorry!" Arthur was saying as the wind howled around them, ruffling their clothes, Eames's hair. "I shouldn't have surprised you!"

Eames couldn't find the words yet, so he nodded his agreement. This wasn't something he wanted to fight about. He knew that part of this was his problem- yes, Arthur broke his concentration, but that didn't mean Arthur was to blame for the way Eames just _froze up and let himself fall_.

Arthur carefully guided them to the ground where Eames stood in the circle of Arthur's arms for a solid minute, reorienting himself.

"Wow."

"I'm sorry!"

"Wow."

"I won't ever do that again, my god, what was I thinking?!"

"That was…"Eames couldn't find the words.

Arthur took this as a bad sign. "I'm a horrible person. I'll understand if you don't ever want to fly with me again. Can you forgive me, Eames?"

Eames cupped Arthur's face in his hands and pressed a firm kiss against his mouth. Then, he said, "We're going to do that again."

Arthur was a little starry-eyed; Eames's kisses did that to him sometimes but maybe it was also part of his stress reaction to watching Eames fall out of the sky.

"What?"

"Darling," Eames said softly. "I want to do that again, only this time, I'm not going to forget about my stupid windstream."

"But I scared you!"

Eames rolled his eyes. "You surprised me. That's different than scaring me. I'll admit the falling wasn't good, but you caught me. I'm fine."

Arthur, logical and smart, tried to divide his emotional response from what just happened and went into point man- mode. "How do we fix the problem?"

"I need to practice more, to get used to flying. More practice will get me used to flying and my fury will work better with me, too."

"I should have known that you weren't ready…"

"For play? When have I never been ready for play?"

"The difference is that you fell quite far and that scared the crap out of me. I just want to make sure that you'll be able to call on your fury and maintain your windstream- you accidentally cut the stream when you stopped focusing on it."

But Arthur still looked ready to throw in the towel for the day.

"Arthur what do you do when you fall off your bike."

"I don't ride a bike," Arthur answered, distracted enough to not notice his one of his own reassurances about aircrafting being used on him.

"I know, but when you were a boy? What did you do?"

Arthur knew what was coming, but agreed to talk it out anyways. "I got back on so I wouldn't be scared."

"Messing up as I'm flying is like falling off of a bike for me. I have to get back on."

Arthur nodded.

"And if you have to, use it as a tool for Phillipa."

Arthur's raised eyebrow was question enough.

"You tell her how I fell, but I tried again."

"What do we do now?"

"We fly, darling."

* * *

"Oh god," Eames said, metaphorical inches from whining at the pain in his shoulders and back. "Why did I have to be mature and agree to continue windcrafting practice?"

Arthur hummed and approached where Eames had slumped down onto the nearest soft object in the Cobb's guest room. It happened to be the bed.

The pillows that had been stacked precariously at the head of the bed, fell in a little bunch around Eames's prostrate form. The forger had yet to try and bat the soft objects away. At this moment, Arthur was half certain that Eames _hadn't_ because he really had hurt his shoulder when he took his last fall, thankfully, much closer to the ground than the first time.

Arthur very carefully and very cautiously crawled onto the bed, moving over Eames's body without hitting anything or jarring him. From this position, the point man would be able to get a better idea of what was wrong with Eames's back and try to do what he could to alleviate Eames's pain.

"I think that you did pretty well, Eames," Arthur said as he pressed his hands against the forger's back.

"I think you're being too kind," Eames answered, his voice a little muffled as he'd pressed his face against his forearm, as his head was partially hidden beneath the large and fluffy pillows that Arthur didn't recognize, thinking that Cobb must have gone shopping before they had arrived and purchased better pillows for his guest room.

Arthur closed his eyes and began to search Eames's body with his water fury. It took him a moment to get started, to get into the right mindset.

"We can wait to do this until the master bath is free," Eames said, finally pushing away the fluffy pillows, wincing as he did it. They would have made use of it first to try and craft away some of his soreness, but the children were getting their evening baths and Arthur didn't want to disrupt their nightly routine.

"No," Arthur said softly, still concentrating. If Eames had to learn how to aircraft better, then Arthur was trying to enhance his watercrafting abilities, too. It wasn't an insurmountable problem- Arthur just had a greater difficulty picturing how his fury was meant to go through a physical object such as a human body that wasn't his own. That was purely instinctual- his water fury, maybe because adult males were composed of roughly sixty percent water, could reside within…but even that was a difficult concept for Arthur to wrap his head around. He knew that it was easier to call on his fury if he had consumed enough water. That it was easiest of all if he was next to a body of water. It was something he had to work on because they wouldn't always have the chance to use a tub or find a source of water to help heal in the field. Arthur had the ability already at his fingertips to send his fury into another person's body; to help them or to harm them.

So Arthur took a deep breath and pressed his hands against Eames's back so that the flats of his hands were pushing gently against Eames's shoulder blades, making Eames bow his head against the pressure. He hurt, Arthur could sense it with his watercrafting. And he was going to make Eames feel better.

"Inside," he whispered to his fury, feeling more than seeing, sensing her leaving him to flow _past_ his hands, to move _through_ Eames's body and begin to search for the hurt, for the injuries.

Once his fury was on the inside, she was no longer a water fury shaped like a butterfly, but a sentient force that could feel Eames's pain and give Arthur a better idea of how to evaluate the situation.

Arthur removed his hands from Eames's back briefly, only to trace his fingers gently down the man's spine. Eyes still closed, Arthur immersed himself in discovering the parts of Eames which hurt the most.

He felt the hairline fracture on Eames's right shoulder blade, the strained muscles of his back. Sore. Eames was very sore, but aside from hurt he'd taken from his occasional falls, the practice they had taken so that Eames would _know_ exactly how to take a fall and how to minimize the damages, there was also a bit strain from just overdoing it with his furycrafting. He was exhausted in more than one way. They probably should have come back to the house sooner, but there had been a beautiful sunset...

"First, I'll take care of your pain," Arthur said softly, directing his fury to move to the specific sites of Eames's back that were injured and flood the area with a soothing numbness to dull the pains and then a gentle heat to relax the muscles in Eames's back. Furycrafting's answer to Icy Hot.

Eames's groan of pleasure, the way he was finally capable of arching his back just a little, showing that even just that was a good start at loosening up the stiffness there. While Eames lay there, boneless and tired with Arthur straddling him, pressing his hands against the man's shoulder and focusing on the fracture with his fury, the point man and the water fury knitted the bone together till it was perfect once again.

Once he was finished with that, Arthur ran one last check, encouraging his fury to look for anything else they might have missed. But it was fine- Eames checked out. He was healthy and strong and had managed to not do anymore damage to himself.

Arthur called back his fury, quietly thanking her for her work. The answering emotion, the love and care he always felt from his little water fury, made him smile and nod as he dismissed her. Previously he would have wondered where she went when she vanished, but now he was more certain than ever that she chose to reside as close to him as possible, that she resided somewhere close to his heart, deep in his chest where she would be safe and sure that he was okay.

Before he could get anymore soppy, Arthur carefully leaned over Eames's limp body and pressed a kiss against the man's healed shoulder.

"You'll feel better after some sleep."

Eames was too tired to turn his head. The sound of his voice was a little husky with want, desire, but also a good watercrafting to dull the pain. He sounded kind of drunk.

"Mmm," Eames muttered. "I thought I was going get something special?"

That was what Eames clearly intended to say, obviously, but what Arthur really heard was 'Thought was gonna git shumthing special.'

Arthur hid his smile and nodded. "Of course, but when you sound less like a drunk and more like an Eames, I'll take you up on that."

Eames was silent for a moment before saying, "'Kay." And then thinking about it and enunciating, which seemed to be much harder for him than usual. " _Okay._ I meant _okay_."

Arthur didn't bother to hide his smile now. "I know."


	2. Chapter 2

A.N: Yay, second chapter! I figured that since the end of the semester is almost here, I'd reward myself with an early posting!

Disclaimer: I don't own Inception or Codex Alera

The point man carefully moved off of the bed, not wanting to jar Eames or accidentally wake him from the light doze he had slipped into, post-healing.

Arthur was quiet, opening and closing the guest room door after turning the lights down low for Eames. He slipped into the hall and walked towards the living room.

Cobb was waiting, sitting on the couch that was set up just in front of the entertainment center. The television was on mute and Cobb was only sort-of watching the news as he drank something that might have been scotch from a cut glass tumbler. Arthur recognized it as one belonging to a set he'd given to the young couple he'd rescued from the military and Project PASIV. If he remembered correctly, that gift had been for Cobb's birthday _years_ ago.

Arthur sat down heavily next to Cobb, sort-of watching the news while he drank nothing at all.

"You've become so domestic, Cobb, but you have yet to offer me a drink."

"You know where the alcohol is, Arthur," Cobb said as he sipped from his tumbler, holding it loosely in one hand as he watched the weather report.

Rather than argue the point, Arthur stood up found the scotch and a tumbler, poured himself a decent amount, and then took it back to the couch. He sat down again and waited for Cobb to start talking.

He didn't.

Not that this was entirely strange to Arthur. Arthur had spent the better part of three years trying to get Cobb to talk to him about Mal's death, going on the run, and why exactly there was a Mal-shade that liked to murder them (but mostly _Arthur_ ) during any important job they were working. That wasn't the type of talk Arthur wanted to hear right now, anyway.

Whatever had happened during the inception of Robert Fischer, whatever had led to them coming out of it alive, of Cobb getting thrown down to Limbo and rescuing Saito, of Cobb's catharsis- Arthur didn't know. He didn't press, he didn't argue, and he didn't hold the man's behavior during the inception (particularly during the first level when everything went to shit and Cobb immediately blamed Arthur or when Cobb put the entire team in danger of going straight to Limbo) against him.

Arthur liked to think he was a better person, but mainly, he didn't have that many friends. And in a really weird way, that was what he was to Cobb- that Cobb was one of Arthur's only friends, even if they didn't start off that way.

Since Arthur had left the military, he didn't really have friends, he didn't associate with his family, because for all the sake of their safety, he was to be considered dead or AWOL like Eames, or just MIA. After leaving with the PASIV and the Cobb's, Arthur became a ghost. The records of his service in the army, of his participation in Project PASIV and his furycrafting abilities were no doubt buried deep under military secrets, lock and key. Many of the soldiers who participated in Project PASIV and/or were discovered to have these strangely powerful abilities to furycraft, were lost and couldn't be found.

If some had been detained and studied like lab rats, Arthur didn't know. But he suspected it.

The one's who could furycraft were too great a resource. There had been talk of collaring with the discipline collars which had been found during archeological digs around areas furycrafting had flourished before becoming less common, less necessary. Though the digs originally revealed the artifacts in Rome, it soon became obvious that these objects had been scattered around the world- wending their way through communities as odd curiosities because the knowledge of what they represented had died with an older civilization.

Cobb cleared his throat, interrupting Arthur's train of thought.

"I wanted to thank you for giving Phillipa that flying lesson today. She's been talking about it for weeks and weeks, now."

Arthur smiled, remembering the way she'd taken to it. Not effortless, but so so instinctive. Phillipa, she would become an excellent windcrafter with time and practice.

"No problem. I'd assume that you want me to talk to James about his earthcrafting?"

"He's not quite ready yet…loads of potential, but he hasn't found a fury yet."

That was tough. Arthur recalled how James had sulked a bit when he had arrived, everyone so excited about Phillipa's (and Eames's) flying lesson, that it was easy to not notice how the little boy wasn't as talkative as everyone else was.

James hadn't even wanted to watch Phillipa's lesson with his father. Cobb had set his earth fury to watch the house, knowing that it was no substitute for a baby sitter, but with such short notice, Cobb hadn't been sure what to do.

James was okay to be by himself for a little bit. He had his building blocks, his Legos. Cobb's fury would have told him if James had left the house, but not what went on inside.

Arthur shook his head. Not the time to question Cobb's parenting skills. He had spotted James when he'd come in with Eames; Arthur had been busy carefully helping Eames cross the threshold by taking some of the other man's weight and draping his arm over his shoulders. James had looked worriedly over in their direction, but hadn't come over and said anything.

"I'll talk to him," Arthur promised. "It's just that you guys had already had dinner and were getting ready to start bath time…"

Cobb, who was about to take a sip from his tumbler again, looked over in Arthur's direction, just a quick side-long glance that was over as soon as it began. Cobb cleared his throat once more.

"Yes, Phillipa wanted to know why Eames made that funny noise," and then Arthur nearly snorted into his scotch when he noticed the look Cobb was shooting him. "I mean it Arthur, I don't want to have to give them the facts of life talk."

"Never liked that show, but I think that I was stuck on reruns of the _Wonder Years_ , personally. I learned a lot of life lessons listening to Daniel Stern narrating Kevin Arnold's young adult years."

Cobb processed this with a very short moment of silence before saying, "Just tell me you guys weren't doing it."

Arthur drank some scotch and let Cobb sweat it out for a moment. Then he said, "We weren't doing it."

Cobb's eyes narrowed into that famous squint he didn't seem to believe he had.

"I don't believe you."

Arthur shrugged, watching as the news devolved into what passed for late-night television- mainly reruns of shows he thought were pretty dumb anyways. He grimaced as the cast of _Friends_ began their opening bit at that stupid fountain.

"Where's the remote?" Arthur said, looking around for it so he could shut off the television screen.

"So you weren't really having sex in the guest room?"

Arthur gave up looking for the remote and glared at Cobb. "I had to do some watercrafting for him, alright? We practiced taking falls and perfecting safe landings. I healed a fracture to his shoulder and eased the strained muscles of his back."

And then Arthur rolled his eyes, "He kind of _wanted_ to be intimate because I promised him something special after his flying lessons, but watercrafting kind of takes a lot out of guy. And you can take that look off your face, Cobb, because I'm pretty sure that it wasn't Phillipa who wanted to know what Eames was groaning about earlier."

He leaned back into the soft couch cushions and shot Cobb a look that was part annoyed and part fond. "It's like now that you're back to being a father to your kids, you're going to be dad-like to everyone, aren't you? Cause you _never_ treated me like that when I was first around here."

Cobb blushed to the roots of his hair. "It's not like that really. Not _really_."

"Cobb, I want you to know that I'm perfectly capable of making my own decisions, and you should know by now that I'm nuts for Eames. I'm bananas for him. He's perfect and wonderful and smart and funny. He's the best guy I could hope for that's actually better because he's the one I _waited_ years and years for. Did you _see_ me take dates when I first got here with you and Mal? Did you see me move on?"

Cobb frowned. "Honestly, I could have sworn that you had a thing for the mailman…"

Arthur looked at the ceiling, counted to ten in his head, and then considered all the reasons why pouring what remained of his scotch over Cobb's head was a childish idea.

"No."

"But he was always joking with you, and teasing you, and making you _blush_ whenever you had to sign for a package!"

"I want you to know that you brought this on yourself, Cobb."

The former extractor's eyes widened. "What?"

Arthur looked at him steadily and said softly, almost a whisper so that the children wouldn't hear accidentally and ask awkward questions.

"You remember your old mailman Jeffery? Well, he had these pretty crazy ideas about why I was living there with you and your beautiful wife- in the beginning he thought I was friend down on my luck, or that I was Mal's younger brother, or something." Arthur took a deep breath, as if he was steeling himself, getting ready to say something truly shocking. Cobb's mouth went dry.

"Did he learn our secret?" Cobb asked just as quietly. "Something about the military, or Project PASIV, or _furycrafting_?"

Arthur shook his head. "No. Cobb, you'll have to promise not to be mad, okay?"

Cobb nodded and moved a little closer, putting his cut glass tumbler of scotch on the nearby coffee table.

"I won't!"

Arthur nodded, shallowly but bravely made direct, unflinching eye contact with Cobb.

"To be completely honest, Jeffrey believed that I was taking part in a threesome with both you and Mal."

Cobb became pale.

"What?"

Arthur licked his lips and said it again. "Jeffery believed that I was involved in a pan-amorous relationship with both you and Mal- sometimes he'd ask me how it felt to be in the middle of a gorgeous-couple sandwich."

"No!"

Arthur nodded. "He'd ask me about who hogged the covers, which side of the bed did I like, who did I _prefer_ …Cobb I had to tell him how handsome I thought you were, so he made the logical assumption that I was getting it regularly."

Cobb was speechless. He would open his mouth and words would sort of form but he'd clamp his teeth down on them and stop. Then after a long moment of drawn out silence, Cobb's look of shock morphed into one of bitter anger.

"You're _lying_!"

Arthur titled his head to one side, as if he were listening for that particular ring of truth a watercrafter could hear if they listened very carefully. "Sounds about right to me, lover."

Then Arthur smirked at Cobb and said, "I told you that you brought this on yourself. Stop trying to interfere in my personal relationships and I won't purposely fabricate a more interesting sex life for you."

For a moment, Cobb looked offended. "Are you saying I'm boring?"

Arthur shook his head. "I'm saying your sex life is probably boring, not that I'd be rude enough to involve myself in such private matters."

What Arthur wasn't going to admit to Cobb was that yes, his mailman (whose name Arthur had long since forgotten) was very friendly, had made several attempts to flirt with Arthur, and _did_ make Arthur blush once or twice. It was silly. Arthur had still been reeling from what happened after Project PASIV, had been hurt over Eames's running away (without him, if he were to be completely honest), and liked the idea of someone, anyone, finding him to be attractive or funny or interesting enough to hold a one and a half minute conversation every weekday and on Saturdays, where they traded mail that was delivered and mail that needed to go out, and talked about the weather.

But Arthur wasn't going to give that to Cobb.

The former extractor had already reached for his cut glass tumbler of scotch and resumed his contemplative sipping.

Now, pretending as if Arthur hadn't made the insinuation of a lifetime and got Cobb to believe it, Cobb started to talk shop.

"But you aren't even working in dreamshare anymore."

Cobb was silent.

"Right?"

Cob was shrugged. "Even though I'm officially retired, I still consult."

Arthur was waiting for Cobb to get to the point.

"Have you heard the rumors going around the dreamshare community?"

"No."

Arthur kept his fingers on the pulse of the dreamshare community. He hadn't heard anything…yet. Of course, it had been a busy day, but from the way Cobb was speaking, it almost sounded like this was something that had managed to escape his notice.

Not likely, though.

So Arthur got ready to listen to Cobb talk about something he heard from someone else; not confirmed, maybe not even relevant. He'd look it up later, but the sooner he got back to bed, the better.

Though he may not have had any difficulties flying today, it was still a reasonable strain on his crafting to teach not one, but two beginners how to properly windcraft.

He yawned widely as Cobb began to describe the rumor. Cobb stopped and waited, finally getting that maybe now wasn't the best time to bother his old point man with dreamshare talk.

"You know," Cobb finally said, displaying some tact. "Why don't you go back to bed and rest? We can talk about this tomorrow."

Arthur wasn't going to argue with that. He set his empty tumbler on the coffee table and trusted that Cobb was going to take care of it.

* * *

He made his way quietly back to the guest room he shared with Eames, startled at first by how quiet it was.

Flicking off the lights as he entered the room and softly closed the door behind him, he allowed his eyes to get used to the darkness before he moved to the bed, too tired to care about such mundane annoying things like brushing his teeth.

As soon as he cuddled up against the warmth of Eames's body, carefully extracting just enough covers to cover himself, Arthur played the big spoon and waited.

"…should I be jealous of this mailman?"

Arthur smiled and pressed a kiss against the side of Eames's neck.

"No."

"Or Cobb? Because I could have sworn I felt the sexual tension skyrocket as soon as you said that to him."

"Definitely not."

The forger laughed softly, saying, "Either way, it's nice to know what you really think of me."

Arthur, regardless of having said as much to Eames before, or having said much more personal things in addition to those other things, he hadn't really anticipated Eames listening in on his conversation with Cobb.

"You're _bananas_ for me, love?"

"I can take it back, you know."

"I will quote you forever," Eames promised Arthur as he carefully rolled over so he could face the point man. He tugged and pulled and settled himself against and around Arthur, so they were cuddling comfortably. "Now whenever anyone asks for my references I'll include one of your glowing comments."

"Please, don't."

Eames shook his head and said, "People headhunting for excellent forgers will no doubt hire me because you think that I'm _perfect and wonderful and smart and funny._ And then I would be hired on the spot!"

Arthur snorted and tried not to imagine Eames walking around using what he said as a good review…

But Eames kept going.

"-and they'll ask me, 'But why does Arthur have all of these wonderful and _accurate_ opinions about you, Mr. Eames?' And then I'll tell them, _I'm quoting Arthur again, but he also said he's nuts for me._ "

"I waited for years, I must be crazy," Arthur sighed in defeat, in exhaustion. "Definitely bananas. Totally nuts."

"The feeling is completely mutual."

And Arthur knew that. He knew it deep down, could feel it as surely as his heart beating. Before, when he referenced how he had waited, how there was no one else because no one else would do, Arthur had held on to the hope, however self-destructive it came off as, that he'd see Eames again. That they would have another chance to work out what went wrong because what they had was too good to let go of. Or, too good to let go of completely. He'd heard Eames mention Yusuf's remarks of how at the start of the inception job, it would be much easier for them to 'pine at each other in person rather than across several continents, give or take an ocean.'

"If it makes you feel better, I most often open up conversations about point men by saying that you're the best."

"So we're even, then?"

"Goodnight, darling."

* * *

Arthur and Eames sat close together at Cobb's breakfast table, across from James and Phillipa, who were eating their breakfast quickly so they could go on with their morning activities.

When the kids were finished, they left at their father's insistence but not before giving their father kisses. Then they scampered away.

"More coffee, Arthur?" Eames asked, stealing the coffee pot from Dom and offering a refill to the point man.

"Sure," Arthur said, smiling a bit when Eames poured the coffee, leaning in to give Arthur a kiss once he was finished pouring.

Cobb frowned in the background, watching the coffeepot with a proprietary air.

"You're guests, I can pour the coffee, you know?"

Eames smiled against Arthur's lips, not willing to break the kiss just yet, maybe prolonging it just to annoy Cobb.

Cobb cleared his throat and waited.

Finally Eames pulled away and handed the coffee pot back to him, careful not to spill a single drop. "Really? I could have sworn I heard something like about how we should take care of our own things now, or something like that?"

Cobb rolled his eyes and moved to put the coffee pot back on the stove.

"You were listening in on my and Arthur's conversation."

"Don't sound so offended, Cobb- I was busy basking in the afterglow of the wild sex Arthur and I just had."

"We weren't having sex," Arthur said plainly, not blushing or getting embarrassed. "I fixed your back and you fell into a doze."

Eames smirked at Cobb then looked back at Arthur, playing surprised. "Are you sure, darling? Because I seem to recall that you rocked my world."

"I can't believe you just said that."

"I'm capable of stealing Americanisms from you, Arthur, just like you steal Briticisms from me."

Arthur was smiling widely now, knowing that the gauntlet had been thrown.

"Would you say that things have gone pear-shaped during our visit to the Cobb's?"

Eames shrugged, affable and unconcerned. "It's no skin off my back teeth."

"If we've got to run I hope you'll watch my six."

"Then we better get while the getting's good."

"Are you guys done yet?" Cobb said, like he was speaking to his children, like Arthur and Eames were being childish and annoying, rather than kind of sweet. "Because I really did want to talk to you guys about something strange…"

Despite their playing with him, both men listened to Cobb, waiting for him to take a seat at the table and finally tell them about this strange thing.

"Okay, just tell us," Arthur said, clearly wanting to roll his eyes but not doing so because Cobb would treat him like the kids he had just shooed from the table. "I'll listen seriously and try to stop myself from doing anything too shocking with Eames, who happens to be a mere two inches away. It's a sign of my respect for you that I haven't ripped his trousers off."

Eames leaned in closer, invading Arthur's personal space, scraping his chair along the tiled floor. Now he was closer to Arthur. Pleased with himself, he smiled in Cobb's direction, maybe enjoying the way the other man began to squint. "Now its one and a half inches," the forger almost leered at Cobb, just to see him bristle. Eames moved in to mock whisper in Arthur's ear, continuing the Americanism verses Briticism game.

"And I think you mean _pants_ , darling.'

"If either of you start talking about underwear, I'm leaving the table.'

Eames sighed against Arthur's neck, resting his chin on the point man's shoulder.

"Must we?"

Arthur considered it and then agreed. "Let's not give the man a hard time about this, he feels very worried, don't you think?"

This was when both watercrafters seriously turned their attention on Cobb. Both gifted with more than average grade water crafting abilities, as soon as they stopped shielding from Cobb, even from each other, there was a sudden shift, a difference in the emotional atmosphere of the room.

Arthur could feel the tension; it was mostly coming from Cobb.

"I am worried," Cobb said, shoulders drooping a little, as if in finally admitting it, having a watercrafter sense that it was what he was feeling probably took some of the pressure away. Whatever news he had was still a burden, but one that he could share.

"Tell us what you've heard," Arthur said, stopping to take a healthy sip of coffee to give Cobb a chance to gather his thoughts. It turns out that it wasn't necessary.

The former extractor's words came out in a rush, quick but not unintelligible.

"Have you heard about the strange dreams that have been going around?"

The first thing that pricked Arthur's interest was the use of _going around_ in Cobb's sentence.

"Like the flu," asked Eames, curious and already picking up and what Arthur had seconds before.

"At first, the stories were isolated, unconnected to anything. At first, I thought that a bunch of people had let the latest science fiction blockbuster to get into their heads and become a background for their dreams. But when it wasn't just dreamsharers reporting this odd dream, when people who weren't in the business began to report the same or similar events, I noticed that the numbers were growing at a very fast rate."

Arthur and seen the funny news report about moviegoers being "scared straight out of their homes and into theaters to watch _Space Bugs from Beyond Pluto's Fifth Moon_ ," a film almost always mentioned by its working title. Arthur had seen it with Eames. They sat in the back and traded a tub of popcorn and a box of Junior Mints back and forth as they made quiet comments about the film's special effects budget or the plot that felt derivative of _Alien_. A good time was had by all, even though both Arthur and Eames had to metalcraft through some of the gorier, scarier bits because even as they kept up their shields, their water furies wouldn't be able to stop them from feeling all the shock and fear of their fellow moviegoers.

"I'll admit that I did have at least one nightmare featuring Captain Soloman being torn limb from limb in the laboratory scene."

Arthur gave Eames a slightly surprised look.

"Really? I thought you said that it was so fake, so silly, that you were shocked anyone was so frightened by it!"

"Yes," Eames admitted without shame, "but you felt how the emotions in the room skyrocketed, right? It left a mark, a kind of emotional patina on my conscious mind- I spent that night battling creepy aliens from Pluto, all the while trying to rub that annoying extrasensory memory away."

Cobb nodded. "At first I thought it was something like that- among dreamsharers, the setting of an alien invasion and mass slaughter of humans began to catch like wildfire. Ruling out factors like it being something from media exposure; ads, commercials, or seeing the preview one too many times, I finally dreamshared with someone who had experienced it."

Arthur stared. "But you said you hadn't dreamshared, that you quit once you came back…"

Cobb shrugged helplessly. "I had to, Arthur."

"Of course, you'll expect me to do what? Share a dream with you and plumb the depths of your subconscious? Am I the dreamshare equivalent of Drano?"

Cobb didn't appear to like this problem to be compared to something so mundane as a clogged drain.

"This isn't funny, Arthur," Cobb said. "I've had these dreams for over a _month_ now- I'm tired, I'm confused, and I need something that feels like and answer, like a plan."

"Do you really think the dreams are, as you implied before, contagious?"

Cobb looked at Eames, who was trying to take the other man seriously.

"I've spoken to others: I've spoken to dreamsharers, both legal and not, and have found that this particular dreamscape is being left behind in our psyches after sharing dreams with someone who was…afflicted or caught it."

For a bit of news that started as a joke, this was becoming disturbing. Arthur had to get more information about this. "…And if this _dream_ is so contagious, teams who shared the same dream must have shared it. Every dreamer must have caught it," Arthur hazarded.

"And if these dreamsharers separated after the job, as we're wont to do, it only compounded the number of people who were infected- not just dreamsharers but maybe clients and marks, too," Eames suggested. He pushed his chair away from the table and stood. Eames began to move around the kitchen table, pacing and speaking aloud.

"How long has this been happening?"

"Roughly six months," Cobb answered. "The release of that movie was purely coincidental." Cobb took a deep breath and said, "I think I know what's happening. I've spoken to others, I've shared their dreams, but it's just so far-fetched that I can't believe it."

"Meaning you waited till it was a bit more of a problem until you contacted Arthur about it," Eames said, still pacing. "Meaning you've taken a risk and dreamed with one of the supposedly _afflicted_ ones and then called on Arthur to help you."

Arthur, who was still sitting at the table, was calm and composed. "So you want me to look into it for you," Arthur asked Cobb. "You want me to confirm it?"

When Cobb nodded, he was agreeing with both men currently occupying his kitchen. To Eames, he reasoned, "Arthur was my right-hand man when we worked extractions together. I trust his skills, I need his opinion."

To Arthur, Cobb didn't say much aside from, "Please?"

It wasn't that Arthur was going to need a huge amount of persuading to agree to help Cobb- it had been well over a year since the completion of inception and the man hadn't bothered Arthur for much of anything since then. Arthur was a free agent, a free point man who worked with the best and partnered with Eames, who would extract and forge. They were good and in high demand, but were still able to control their schedules and take as much time off as they liked. They worked for the pleasure of it, for the challenge, not the money. Though, of course, the money was _very_ good.

There must have been another reason, aside from their friendship and former working relationship that made Cobb bring this problem to them. Or, mention it during a non work related visit.

Eames stopped pacing and chose a spot at the counter just behind and to the left of Arthur's chair. Eames leaned up against the immaculately clean space with its orderly and neat rows of kitchen utensils and state of the art gadgets like food processors and a massive Kitchen Aid done in fire engine red. The forger took a shot in the dark.

"You think that these dreamers are being incepted with this idea or are somehow incepting themselves."

Cobb shrugged again, seeming more helpless than before. "I just don't know. I've traced the reports back to a single team."

If it were so simple as _speaking_ to the original team, Cobb would have done so already.

"That team has gone missing, then," Eames asked, still leaning against that counter, toying with one of the items left there. It was a melon baller, though they hadn't had any melon during breakfast. Eames looked at it for a moment more before putting it back in time to catch Arthur half turning in his chair to look at him over his shoulder, wearing a conspirator's grin.

"No, no, Eames. They're probably all dead by now. Whatever they'd been working on must have been big."

"And dead men tell no tales."

Cobb looked between the two men, half in wonder, half in mild exasperation.

"You guys are going to have fun with this, aren't you?"

As if on cue both Arthur and Eames looked at Cobb at the same time, not choreographed or planned, but because they usually operated in sync with each other. They were just that good.

"Our jobs aren't fun," Arthur said seriously, "we're paid well for work that we are excellent at. And you're trying to hire us, aren't you?" Arthur smiled, dimpling a bit. "You wanted the best point man."

Eames leaned away from his spot against the counter top and tried to steal one of Arthur's dimples, pinching at one of the charming little divots at the corner of Arthur's mouth. Arthur rolled his eyes and gently batted Eames's hand away.

"And you _also_ wanted the best forger. You wanted us to work together and figure this out."

Cobb looked between the two and said, as if there was any doubt, "So you'll do it?"

Arthur nodded. "Let's start with the PASIV; show us what you've been dreaming about."

* * *

"Are we going to do this together or separately?"

Arthur had been busy setting up the PASIV, checking the Somnacin levels, and unspooling the lengths of tubing connected to the machine.

He looked up from what he was doing to answer Eames.

"We could flip a coin, or play rock paper scissors-," Arthur began.

But Eames came closer and tugged the other man into his arms saying, "Please, don't."

Face pressed against Eames's shoulder, Arthur was mostly passive about the sudden embrace.

"We could draw straws," was what he said in response to Eames's obvious worry.

"Just let me do it."

"Okay, but you have to promise that you don't mess with the length of the straws."

"Not what I was talking about."

"I know what you meant," Arthur said, refraining from rolling his eyes, because what was the point? "This is the time you become protective? Right now?"

"I wouldn't call it protective, per say. It's just that we'll be going into Cobb's subconscious and this is such a strange problem, I'd rather not have you deal with it."

"What if I'm just as unhappy about _you_ having to do it?"

"Then we leave the Cobb's and runaway to be fantastic dream criminals."

Arthur couldn't hide his smile. "We did that last time."

"Oh, no. What will we ever do instead?" Eames asked.

But Arthur was already pulling away from Eames and returning to the PASIV.

"We will continue with our new job and help Cobb. If you want to go into the dream with Cobb, that's fine. I'll watch the children while you're under, if you really want me to."

"Personally, I would like to not jump through hoops for Cobb, period."

Arthur smiled for him. "You make such sacrifices."

Eames sighed dramatically, bowing his head. "What a sad, sad life I lead, darling. You'll still love me if I go mad, right?"

"Cobb doesn't look any crazier than usual," Arthur said softly, hoping that their conversation wasn't loud enough to be overheard.

Which happened anyway when Cobb reentered his personal office with a cushioned folding chair and a card table.

"I love how you guys just _say_ stuff like that without worrying about offending me."

"Oh don't act like people in dreamshare didn't think you were a bit weird when you couldn't know about the levels or how a projection of your dead wife would fuck up everything just because," Arthur said shortly, efficiently passing over tubing to the man he'd just offended.

Then Cobb stared at Arthur, shrugged, and muttered, "It took me awhile to get over my issues, catharsis is a bitch, so let's get this figured out, okay?"

Arthur and Eames exchanged a glance, said nothing for a moment, before Eames took Arthur's place at the PASIV and proceeded to push the point man out of the office.

"Have fun with the kids, darling!" Eames said in a louder tone, only to say in an undertone, "If I come out of there speaking gibberish you'll know who to blame."

"My hero," Arthur responded before pulling Eames in for one more kiss and leaving the room. He'd heard the door lock with a little _click_ and set his watch before heading out to watch the children.

* * *

Eames sat down in the padded fold out chair while Cobb took his cool, wheeled office chair and set it up next to the PASIV resting on the card table.

"I just want you to know that its chivalry and a desire to make Arthur happy that is keeping me in this chair." Eames sat in said chair. "This is an uncomfortable chair." He looked over at Cobb and frowned. "Is this just another way to tell me you don't approve of me and Arthur?"

Cobb snorted. "Approve of you and Arthur? What in the hell makes you think a single thing I say matters? You and Arthur are great. Arthur loves you. He has loved you for as long as I've known him. He's constant in his affection, he's loyal to fault."

Eames stared. "So we have your blessing to continue being badass dream criminals."

"Not answering that," Cobb said as he set himself up in his chair, inserting the needle and waiting for Eames to do the same.

"I know you're not going to answer that," Eames said, making sure he was hooked up to the PASIV, waiting to see if Cobb was going to say anything else.

The other man raised his eyebrows, pointedly not saying anything else to Eames.

"Fine," Eames said, ready to press the button and send them into the dream. "Be that way."

But before Eames could press the button, Cobb said, "I don't want you to have any preconceived notions about the dream you're about to enter- I want you to go into it cold. Or as cold as possible considering the conversation we all had before."

"Don't worry, my expectations are very low, Cobb."

"That's wonderful."

"No, really. I don't expect anything out of the ordinary, at all. I'll be so shocked by what you show me, it will be great!"

Cobb squinted at Eames, saying, "Did you not learn sarcasm properly when you were growing up?"

"I'm a master of sarcasm."

"Just press the button."

And Eames did.


	3. Chapter 3

A.N: I'm not having the best time of it lately (I mean really, two bad days in a row?) but I'd like to think that things will get better. I mean today started with a lovely dream about singing a duet with Brendon Urie in a parking lot. That's got to count as sort of positive!

Disclaimer: I don't own Inception or Codex Alera.

What happened when they entered the dreamscape was best described like so:

In scene thirteen of _Space Bugs from Beyond Pluto's Fifth Moon,_ the intergalactic space team landed on the strange planet that played host to the space bugs that liked to devour, kill, and mimic those they encountered (usually in very graphic ways with lots of blood, guts, and screaming).

What Eames saw in Cobb's dream was about as bad.

The first thing that Eames became aware of was the environment- a squishy, sort of marshy area covered in vegetation- trees, moss, and grasses. But that most of the vegetation was covered in this kind of wax that sort of glowed. It glowed green, giving the whole dreamscape a weird, alien appearance.

It was humid and strange and as Eames perceived his new environment, he really only could see one similarity between this dream and the movies- the strange bug creatures that dotted the landscape.

The only difference was that these bugs were spider shaped, while the movie's bug monsters were like cockroaches with massive teeth.

Eames watched as a line of the strange spiders moved, fluidly, gracefully, towards what could only be a hive in the distance. The eight-legged creatures moved with a single-minded purpose.

"Don't move."

Eames froze on the spot, recognizing Cobb's voice, but not willing to move another inch so he could look in the other man's direction.

"Hey," he said instead, "do you normally watch this parade of spiders and feel a little disturbed, or do you manifest with a gigantic can of bug spray and wipe them out?"

"The only thing that works is to obliterate them completely, Eames. Fire, crushing, whatever you can manage."

Eames chanced looking to his left where Cobb stood, saying "So you really do fight them in your dreams?"

Cobb nodded. "I may die horrifically at the end, but I still take dozens of the little fuckers with me when I do go, Eames."

Eames would have said something about how he was impressed, but that was a little too close to one of _his and Arthur's_ things. They had few things that they could claim as a couple- all the _darlings,_ jabs about needing more specificity, and the bantering! Whether they were impressed or condescending, whether they had advised each other to dream a little bigger. There were things they said without truly saying because it wasn't for the rest to hear; when merry chases and requests to be back before the kick really meant 'Please come back to me safely, okay?'. No, those were private and special and belonged to _them_.

So, instead of saying he was impressed, Eames decided to acknowledge the work Cobb had already done in discovering the vulnerabilities of these creatures.

"Good for you, Cobb."

* * *

They didn't stand there and watch the bugs for long; after taking a few precautions to hide their presence, they began to run, using their earthcrafting to move with speed and swiftness, dampening the sounds of their footfalls with some woodcrafting when possible. They followed the path of the bugs and chatted as they went.

"Did you know that they're calling me the next Dom Cobb," Eames asked in a conversational undertone, staying close to Cobb as they ran, following the bugs to a certain point and then stopping- choosing the relative cover of a large, wax covered, green-glowing tree. They watched as the spiders continued moving towards a large tree, the size of a California Redwood, that was covered in glowing green stuff. Definitely the hive.

Cobb was silent, watching the bizarre creatures make their pilgrimage to the hive, to the nest, to the home base.

"The dreamshare community, I mean," Eames needlessly clarified for Cobb. "They're praising me up one side and down the other."

"Why are you telling me this," Cobb said, not distracted by this line of conversation. "I wouldn't think you'd care about who you're compared to…unless this is leading into another conversation about how crazy you think I am."

"While I'm flattered that the dreamshare community thinks I'm the next big thing in extraction, I don't want to earn your reputation for being stark, raving mad.'

Cobb chanced a quick glance in Eames's direction, the alien green glow of the substance coating the ground casting light on his features well enough that Eames could see the other man's disapproval.

"I'm not crazy."

"Sure."

"Really, I'm not. I experienced catharsis. I'm not grief stricken or feeling guilty."

"Yes," Eames allowed, briefly nodding his agreement, "but you still dragged Arthur back into one of your messes and he's going to help you because he's loyal to a fault. And that's why you called him up above."

"Phillipa needed her flying lessons…" Cobb's slightly evasive tone hinted that he knew how weak his claim was, but wasn't going to budge.

"It was a convenient way of getting him to come to your house. Because you needed him to be here in person to work your pitch." Eames's eyes narrowed. "And if you tried to manipulate the way he still worries over the safety of you and your children, how he _still_ thinks of you for Mal's sake, I'll craft you into ribbons."

"…I don't know how to respond to that threat," Cobb whispered back. "Is that really a threat? Were you trying to threaten me?"

"I have five out of the six types of furycrafting- use your _imagination_ , Cobb."

"Duly noted," Cobb whispered.

For a moment they observed the spiders in silence. Then they didn't.

"This has got to be the most boring mission in an alien dreamscape."

"You want to liven it up, Eames?"

"If only to see what else will happen, yes."

"Stop trying to hide your warmth- increase your temperature."

Before, Cobb had instructed Eames to do what he could to not raise his internal body temperature.

Without any firecrafting, Eames wouldn't be able to move heat and warmth like Cobb could- if it was cold, like it had been on the third level of the Fischer job, Cobb would have used internal crafting to not allow much heat to leave his body, keeping himself warm. Now, Cobb was using the same theory, but in reverse, allowing retention of his warmth to slip further and further, not bleeding warmth, but slowly siphoning an excess amount off so it was just enough to survive without.

Eames usually used his watercrafting to regulate temperature, using his water fury to increase blood flow to his extremities, to make it flow more easily. But that was to keep warm.

It wasn't as good as Cobb's firecrafting, so Eames did the only thing he could think of- he'd found the nearest body of water in this humid, marshy environment and jumped in. Though the air was humid, the water was cool, soaking Eames's shirt, pants, and shoes. Then, he used his watercrafting to encourage the heat to leave the water permeating his clothing, turning the water from a liquid to a solid. He changed the water into ice.

It was an uncomfortable run and an uncomfortable stakeout of the alien creatures- so when he was encouraged to release the crafting, Eames did so with a sigh of relief, closing his eyes and calling on his water fury.

Eames allowed the ice to become water which beaded off his clothes in heavy, fat droplets. The water fell from his clothing, making them merely damp rather than soaked. Then he made his blood flow strongly, increasing it till he could feel himself getting warmer. His icy fingers began to regain their pink color as warmth returned.

Then there was a piercing shriek from the line of spiders. Eames opened his eyes and saw something shocking. The nearest of the spiders had stopped dead. It then swiveled on the spot, turning till it's many eyes were facing in the dreamsharer's direction; the pale eyes turned a bright, alarming _orange_. The translucent white spider bobbed up and down on the spot, its eight spindly legs moving up and down in a jerky motion.

And as it continued its warning cry, other spiders in the line turned and did the same exact thing.

Eames manifested a gun and prepared to pick them off one by one. He had barely lined up his first shot when as a horde, as a murderous herd, the creatures swarmed towards them, focusing on Eames.

The ear-splitting alarm continued, carried from one spider to another. If Eames cared to look towards the tree, that hive adorned in that green waxy substance, he'd see that more of the creatures were spilling out, accompanied by larger, more dangerous looking bugs. But no, Eames was far too busy gaping at the oncoming attackers to notice that, finally forgoing his newly dreamed up weapon to call on his earthcrafting… which didn't work so well as the ground was covered, completely coated in that strange substance; it had some give to it, but Eames could see where his feet had made depressions too deep in the green stuff that it wouldn't spring back again- there was a jagged gouge mark from where he'd dug one heel into the ground. From this gouge mark, this wound, issued a (you guessed it) green fluid that Eames didn't dare touch. Eames watched with all the mystification of the horror movie victim who should be running away from the monster, not watching as it gets closer and closer. He watched first the ground and its leak of strange fluid, then he noticed the spiders quickly swimming their way through the stuff, blending in so well that Eames never would have known that he and Cobb had been crouching on top of them, watching the line of spiders from under a wax covered tree. Which was also now boiling with more spiders, eyes glowing orange.

Eames took his last few seconds before the attack to look at Cobb and say, "You couldn't have said _anything_ about that, could you?"

The spiders hit them both like a wave; dropped down from the tree like overripe eight-legged fruit; surged from beneath the ground the only way horrifying alien creatures could. In a word, horrifyingly.

Eames was bitten across his arms and back, his legs and face, any bit of exposed skin or unprotected spot on his body was subject to the sharp piercing fangs and the poison that came with it.

Cobb was treated to the same. Before the former extractor's breaths were cut short, before he succumbed to the hallucinations, delusions, or convulsions, he said, "That was for saying I'm crazy."

But Eames was collapsing, either due to the poison working its way through his system or because of the weight of the spiders, each the size of a medium sized dog, latching onto him and biting and biting and biting.

Eames blacked out or died, waking up in Cobb's office with a lurch and an instinctive need to swat at the phantom prickling of spider legs, of piercing venomous fangs, briefly smacking at his shoulders, his neck, dislodging the IV from the PASIV and wincing at the stinging sensation. He glared at Cobb, who was already awake and carefully removing his IV.

* * *

"But why?" James asked. He was the picture of a morose little boy.

Arthur sighed and tried to explain one more time. "It's how it works. Sometimes it takes a little longer to come into your furies. Do you know how long it took _me_?"

James narrowed his eyes in a squint and pouted, Dom Cobb in miniature. "But that's different. Daddy says you were always _capable_ , you just didn't _know_."

Now it was Arthur's turn to frown. First, James's father should know better. He couldn't just point to Arthur and say that before the military experiment he had no idea, that none of them did. The experiment gave them awareness, if they hadn't known already (like Eames had). Sure, Arthur hadn't known he was capable of furycraft _before_ Project PASIV, but afterwards he came to realize that maybe he had claimed a fury all on his own long before his joining the military.

Arthur wasn't sure. It was just a feeling, but he couldn't ignore it entirely- he often wondered if maybe his first fury was Spot, who was nameless until a very young Phillipa had taken it upon herself to bestow a name on her uncle Arthur's air fury.

The wind wolf, Spot, was Arthur's strongest fury, his most loyal. Arthur couldn't help but think of bonding with his air fury when he was fairly young, maybe Phillipa's age even. When he was about her age he'd taken gymnastics, mostly after nixing every other idea for an extracurricular activity suggested by his parents who proposed this or that after-school activity, saying that it might be fun or that he might finally make some friends (though they were careful to never, ever say that out loud or to his face) presenting him with flyers and pamphlets, like they were offerings to appease an angry god.

Finding gymnastics to be the least objectionable, Arthur finally learned that he was good at something. That he had great balance, that he wasn't afraid of hard work and practice, that he liked the challenge of learning complicated routines. He learned to tumble, cartwheel, do a series of flips that would make the spectators clutch their heads in sympathy- but Arthur never faltered and rarely fell. He, a gangly guy just getting into his first growth spurt, making him feel a bit pressed thin, rolled flat, all skinny ankles and prominent wrists, with the puppyish large hands and feet which promised that he would become a great specimen, a big dog.

He felt awkward. Stuck in the middle of the change, more ugly duckling than swan, constantly tripping over his own feet. But when he practiced, when he competed, he felt graceful. When he was in the air, he was unstoppable.

He'd never know for sure if that was when he'd bonded with his air fury- it may have just been skill that kept from falling off the parallel bars, practice that helped him stick all of his landings.

But even now when he'd practice to stay limber and agile, Arthur could swear that Spot was helping him, even if it was just a careful, unseen adjustment to a landing, a little more air-time to complete a particular trick.

On a whim, Arthur took the kids outside, patiently abiding James's whining. This was just a difficult time for him, but it would be okay- he'd find his fury and then he'd take lessons for crafting, too.

Arthur was already dressed comfortably in a t-shirt and jeans, so he led the kids in a familiar game he thought might lift James's sour mood.

"Give me something hard, okay?" Arthur called after stretching.

Then the game started.

"You have to spell," Phillipa said, thinking for a moment longer before grinning, "Cantaloupe!"

Arthur mock rolled his eyes. "Just ten letters and only three syllables? I could spell that in my sleep!"

So after the kids backed away, Arthur ran forwards, hopping on one foot and sending himself flying end-over-end, first doing a somersault while calling out, "C!"

Then Arthur did a chart-wheel, finishing with, "A!" And so on and so on.

Arthur finished with a flourish, out of breath but pleased.

"Now it's your turn," Arthur said to James.

* * *

When Cobb and Eames came looking for Arthur, what they found was Arthur in the yard, helping James keep his balance while the boy focused on standing on his head. Uncle Arthur kept on hand close, pressing against James's back, ready to catch the boy if he had to.

"Okay, this is a hard one, but I know you can do it."

James, a little red in the face from being upside down, nodded shallowly so as not to fall by accident.

"Can you spell supercalifragilisticexpialidocious?"

"That's not a real word," James said with a grunt. And then he spelled it anyway, just really fast. "S- U- P- E- R- C- A- L- I- F- R- A- G- I- L- I- S- T- I- C- E- X- P- I- A- L- I- D- O- C- I- O- U- S."

"Very good!" Arthur praised James, giving the boy a little nudge forwards. It was something that James was clearly prepared for because the little boy fell forwards using the momentum of his fall to help him get to his feet.

Both Arthur and Cobb clapped for James.

"Good job, James," Cobb said to his son, as if he hadn't just woken up from a dream featuring disturbing alien bugs! "I bet you'll be able to do a full somersault next, all by yourself!"

Eames avoided saying anything. He wasn't in the right setting to say what he wanted to.

What Eames wanted to say was _Fuck you, Cobb. Attack me with alien bugs in your damned dream? You'll love the traps I set for you the next time you need to go under…_

Arthur noticed the flaring of _annoyance_ and _anger_ from Eames, unable to stop turning in his direction once he caught the emotions with his watercrafting. He simply raised his eyebrows in question, saying nothing when Eames quietly shook his head. Arthur decided it was time for a discussion about what they may or may not have found.

"Kids, why don't you play outside for a little while me, Mr. Eames, and your father have a chat?"

Phillipa, naturally curious, asked what the talk was supposed to be about. Before Cobb could send Eames a narrow-eyed glare that almost screamed _don't you dare_ , the forger had already muttered, "Spiders. We're going to talk about _spiders_."

Eager to start the conversation without the children listening in, Arthur encouraged the kids to find their books or toys. They did as he asked, but they weren't dumb, they could tell that _something_ was off. But they agreed to keep to the yard, to not practice any crafting without an adult present, that lunch would be in an hour and to behave because Arthur would know if they'd been up to something.

With that done, Arthur turned to the other men and gestured that they head back inside.

* * *

Arthur corralled the other two dreamworkers inside the house, closing the screen-door behind him and leveling them with a stare that most of dreamshare talked about- they called Arthur's irritated, demanding scowl a thing of beauty and terror. That it was possible to cry before him…

Neither Eames nor Cobb cried, but they did share a brief glance and then told him.

"Monsters."

"No," Eames said sharply, arguing with Cobb. "Not just monsters! They are weird, terrifying creatures and I can't believe I let you let them into my head!"

"I told you that people who share dreams with the afflicted have the same dreams afterwards!"

"Then you better be fucking glad you didn't get Arthur to come down into the dream with you instead!"

"Arthur wouldn't hurt me. He'd logically find a way to solve the problem!" Cobb said this defiantly, turning to Arthur for confirmation. "Right?"

Arthur still had that particular look on his face- the look that promised others that _yes_ , he could totally read their every thought and _no,_ there was no hope.

"Abandon all hope ye who enter here," Arthur drawled, taking just a little bit of pleasure as Cobb's face fell. "Come on, I know that something bad happened in the dream. If you just told me about it, I could have come up with a reason or an idea for _why_ it was happening or _what_ the fuck it is. But, since you've been so kind as to talk about what was in the dream, I've got a pretty good feeling I know what people are having nightmares about. It's the Vord."

Cobb's face fell and Eames, briefly, looked triumphant. He turned to Cobb and pointed at the man, "See? You see now that you didn't need him to go into the dream to learn about what the problem is? Because Arthur is brilliant! Arthur is wonderful! And if you sent him into that dream I would have made you pay!"

"By crafting me into ribbons?" Cobb asked, a little mocking as he remembered that part of the dream. "I still don't see that as threatening."

"I never said that you weren't a smart man, Dom. I usually say that you're crazy."

"I still don't like it when you tell me that," Cobb said, having the gall to sound a little hurt.

"And I still don't think that I _deserved_ to be attacked by Vord. Because that's what they were. The Vord are infecting our dreams."

"I still don't know what it's supposed to mean," Cobb said. "None of us have figured it out so far, so I decided to bring the problem to you guys."

"Because we're the best or because you wanted to inflict your troubles on us?"

Arthur rolled his eyes at Eames. "No need to be over-dramatic, Eames. You will be fine, he will be fine, we'll come up with a solution to this problem. I'm beginning to think that we'll have to find that team and discover what in the hell they were working on, obviously."

Eames shot Cobb a dark look. "You knew that from the start."

"So you'll help? Its not just for me; this is much, much bigger!"

"Don't get your panties in a twist, Cobb," Arthur advised. "We'll look into it, but first, let's marshal our forces and do some research."

"I love it when you get into point man mode, darling." Eames couldn't help but be reassured by Arthur's straightforward answer, his immediate desire to research the issue, to plan rather than panic. It soothed Eames's slightly frazzled nerves and from the way Arthur smiled at him, the forger was certain that Arthur was well aware.

"Why thank you, Mr. Eames."

* * *

It started with Arthur attempting to rule out the simplest of explanations: the first being the Somnacin used by Cobb.

It led to him calling Yusuf, who didn't answer his phone. Instead, Ariadne answered for him.

"Yusuf's phone," the young architect answered.

"Hello Ariadne," Arthur replied, leaning against the hallway wall of Cobb's home, crossing his legs at the ankle and keeping one ear open for the noise of Eames and Cobb getting ready to murder each other (which he doubted would truly happen but didn't want to rule out just yet).

There was a half-a-beat of silence as Arthur tried to come up with the proper segue from polite greetings to a question about Somnacin which may or may not convince users that they see creepy, scary, alien creatures which want to kill them. So Arthur decided to jump into the water with his shoes on, so to speak.

"I need to talk to Yusuf about something really screwed up."

"Don't we all? The man could have become a therapist if he wanted to. He's stepped out for a second, but will be back pretty soon."

"Not really what I meant," Arthur said, referring to Yusuf's previously untapped potential as a therapist. "Have you heard?"

It turned out that she hadn't, so Arthur gave her the short version; basically, a more colorful version of 'it's something really screwed up' just with alien creatures known as Vord sprinkled on top.

And once Ariadne had made a note about it (in big capital letters, on a whiteboard affixed to Yusuf's fridge with magnets) they began to shoot the breeze about other stuff.

"So how are things with you and Eames?"

Arthur couldn't stop his smile; he always felt proud, so fucking happy, when someone he knew asked after him _and_ Eames. They were having a great relationship, they hardly fought, and they continued to work together, making tons of money and an excellent name for themselves.

"We're doing great."

"I heard that Eames is being compared to Dom Cobb, that he's the _next_ Dom Cobb."

"We know. Eames is obviously flattered."

Ariadne snorted. "I can tell. Yusuf tells me that you guys are lighting up dreamshare as the best extraction team."

It was definitely true. Arthur and Eames were making a name for themselves as the point man and forger (the forger who was also a _very_ good extractor) to go to if you wanted an inception _or_ an extraction. Because, as Eames had reasoned at the beginning, it was best to diversify and offer what few dreamsharers could.

"And how are you and Yusuf doing?"

Ariadne hemmed and hawed, kind of dancing around the issue before finally saying, "I'm almost suspicious, you know? Its going too well."

"I didn't think there was such a thing as 'too well'."

"Well there _is_. He's so sweet! He's so nice!"

Arthur was patient and cast his gaze up to the ceiling, totally able to imagine the look on Ariadne's face as she said this. "I'd take it that that apology went over very well."

"That was a year ago. He doesn't have to apologize to me for anything!"

But, call it instinct, Arthur was willing to call her on it.

"Really?"

"Well, I wouldn't say _apologize_."

Arthur could picture Ariadne taking a similar pose as him, maybe lingering around Yusuf's lab. She was probably biting her lower lip as she said this.

"It's been a year and we're great. I think we've got the foundations for something nice…but I think it kind of confuses him sometimes."

"The relationship, or being happy, or how not to accidentally piss you off?" Arthur offered up several reasons, giving Ariadne a chance to pick one or finally spit out the one that bothered her.

"We're together, but sometimes I don't think he understands what it entails."

Arthur sighed. "Do I have to sit him down and give him a talk- if you earthcrafted his brains out, it will be difficult, but if you really need to know I could-"

"No, no!" Ariadne quickly interrupted Arthur, stopping him mid-sentence. "I can understand what the problem is. Don't take this the wrong way, but I think _he_ thinks that there's some standard he's not quite reaching in our relationship. He's comparing our relationship to others."

Arthur understood. "Me and Eames or Cobb and Mal?"

"To be honest, maybe a little bit of both. Sometimes I think he worries that our relationship isn't the end-all-be-all, let's court madness kind of love that Cobb and Mal shared, or even as enduring as yours and Eames's relationship."

Arthur was about to say something in response to that, but was interrupted by the presence of Eames at his side. The forger was quiet, holding up a pad of paper which said, " _Can I murder Cobb, please?"_ And, just below that, " _Did you want potato chips with your tuna sandwich?"_

Not wanting to let Ariadne know he was talking to Eames, Arthur pointed to the first message and solemnly shook his head. He pointed to the second message and nodded.

Eames gestured for him to wait, flipping the page over and taking out a pen so he could write another question on a fresh page. When he was done, there was a new question. It said, " _Barbecue or sour cream and onion?"_ And then, after a moment thinking about it, Eames quickly scribbled, " _But are you certain that I can't murder Cobb, darling?"_

Arthur shook his head again and made a waving motion with one hand, urging Eames to go back into the kitchen.

The point man continued his phone conversation, finding it hard to do. Arthur couldn't give relationship advice without sounding like a walking talking cliché; the friend (because Arthur really did consider the young architect to be a friend and thought that she might consider him the same way) who finally found that special someone who loved him completely. That if love were truly a battlefield, he'd made it through not exactly unscathed, but victorious with his lover at his side.

"You could actually _talk_ about it," Arthur advised, thinking to himself 'with Yusuf and not me, with your boyfriend not your friend.'

As if his thoughts called the chemist to the lab, like the intensity of Arthur's repetitions made the star of the conversation appear.

"Hey!" Ariadne said to Yusuf, at least Arthur presumed that it was Yusuf rather than a burglar who she greeted so warmly. The phone was then pressed against Ariadne's chest, most likely, dampening the noise of the conversation she had with her significant other.

On his end of the phone connection, all Arthur could hear was the rhythm of their conversation; the ebb and flow of Ariadne's voice, which was a higher pitch than Yusuf's, along with Yusuf's replies which were no more than muted rumbles Arthur was only able to catch every other word.

Eames hadn't left. He touched Arthur's elbow and dropped his pad of paper to the floor so he could make a gesture with one hand, using his air fury to give them a little bubble of privacy so that their conversation wouldn't be overheard by Cobb, who probably still puttered away in the kitchen. Arthur felt the telltale pressure of the air against his ears, smiling in approval for Eames managing it so smoothly.

"Barbecue or sour cream, love? And are you absolutely, positively certain that I can't murder Cobb?"

"Barbecue is fine," Arthur said before addressing the other issue that had nothing to do with the flavor of the potato chips served with his tuna sandwich. "And, no, you can't murder Cobb."

Eames was close, but slid closer to Arthur, moving with one shoulder pressed against the wall till he was flush against Arthur's side. And since that wasn't good enough, he decided to move away from the wall and step in front of the point man, leaning forwards and blocking him in. Not that Arthur minded.

"I can't wound him?" asked Eames as he braced his forearms against the wall, neatly framing Arthur's face, neck, and shoulders.

"No," Arthur said, doing what Ariadne had probably done- he pressed the phone against his chest, to muffle the sounds of their already muffled conversation. He briefly wondered if the phone was close enough to his heart, would the listener on the other end be able to hear the way his heartbeat had begun to speed-up as Eames drew himself closer?

"I can't incapacitate him?"

"Sorry, no."

"Are you certain? Not even if I changed _incapacitate_ to _enthusiastically harass?_ "

"You get points for creativity," Arthur allowed, but stuck with his previous answer. "But no enthusiastically harassing Cobb. Do not pass go, do not collect two hundred dollars."

"You know I dislike Monopoly. Why don't we play a different game?" Eames had pressed his body closer to Arthur's and they fit like puzzle pieces, like silverware in a drawer. "Like _Seven Minutes in Heaven._ "

"We'd need a closet," Arthur said, smiling as Eames pressed a kiss against his cheek then took the opportunity to press another against the side of the point man's neck as he continued his pitch.

"We'll start a new version, then. We'll call it _Seven Minutes in Heaven- the Hallway edition._ "

Arthur nudged Eames with one hand, pushing him away slightly with one hand against the forger's chest.

"Making out with me isn't going to change my mind," Arthur reminded him after he double checked his phone. He hadn't been hung up on and he hadn't hung up on _them_ , so that was good. When he put the phone to his ear, he could still hear them talking, and when he checked his phone he noticed that less than a minute had gone by.

Eames snorted, moving to Arthur's side, back against the wall and ready to behave himself, but slanting a smirk Arthur's way.

"Making out is for high school students, darling. I was trying to seduce you."

Arthur glanced at his phone again and then pressed the speakerphone button.

"I didn't need to hear that," Yusuf groused. "I really, truly didn't need to hear that."

"And why is that?" Eames asked, perfectly conversational.

"Because it's bad enough that I have to deal with how perfectly in love you both are. I don't want to know the details about you seducing Arthur."

"Got it," Eames said.

"That doesn't mean 'Tell me more, Eames'. I want you to understand that, okay?"

"Don't I know it," Arthur agreed. "Even I get bored of the constant plans I hear for seducing me- he's already got me, I'm a safe bet!"

Yusuf cleared his throat. "She's…she's not in the room, I'm not on speakerphone, so let me have it."

The chemist sounded so defeated that Arthur shot Eames a look, gently shaking his head. Because he knew that Yusuf wasn't really referring to the purpose of the call so much as the problem that presented itself _during_ the conversation. Probably best to get this taken care of first...

"Am I a bad boyfriend?" the chemist asked.

"Define bad boyfriend," Eames asked.

"He needs some specificity," Arthur added in, nodding to himself as if the world would be a better place if there were more specificity, period.

"I love her a lot."

"That sounds terrible," Eames said in a shocked tone of voice. "How dare you be so mean to your girlfriend, who also loves _you_!"

"I think I'm missing something. There's something I'm not doing, but every time I ask, she says nothing's wrong. We're comfortable with each other, we're attracted to each other- she visits in Mombasa and I go to Paris. We call, we text, we email, and we Skype. But I still think that I'm not doing something right…"

"Have you spoken to her about it?" Arthur asked, feeling like he was having the same conversation as before, just with a different person. "Relationships are hard. It takes a lot of work, compromise, but most of all, you can't have unrealistic expectations of yourself or others."

"It's better if you just talk it out, get your worries out into the open," Eames added before commenting. "Darling, do you think that if dreamshare suddenly loses its appeal, we should become relationship counselors?"

Arthur rolled his eyes, holding up his phone so both he and Eames could hear Yusuf and so the chemist would be able to hear them, too, even if most of what he was hearing right now was just ridiculous.

"No."

"But we'd be perfect at that sort of thing! We could take calls from lovelorn people who listen to our radio show-"

"Now we have a radio show? I thought our hypothetical relationship counseling would take place at some sort of center or office? We could have comfortable chairs, a couch if the person is the type to lay back and bitch about life-"

"Rule one of our relationship counseling enterprise is we don't describe our customers talking about relationships or other life problems as _bitching_."

Over the phone, Yusuf sighed. "We don't argue like that. Ever."

"Holy crap," Arthur said in false amazement. "You're in a mature, well-adjusted relationship, Yusuf. I don't know what you think you're missing!"

"He wants fairytales; he wants to be the hero who rides in on the white horse, saves fair damsel, and then rides off into the sunset while the credits roll. Hollywood has ruined our ideas about romance and love and in what order it should all occur in," Eames said with a shrug. "Cobb and Mal had the romantic tragedy- true love, happy family, successful business, which was cut short by disaster and ended their marriage and her life. You and I, we separated but continued to love each other, but eventually got back together."

"Before, I couldn't even bring myself to date anyone new, though I was told that moving on would be easier if I had a new boyfriend."

Eames, still apologetic for that ugly time in their relationship, said, "I'm glad you didn't. I'm sorry I left you waiting."

Arthur spoke to Yusuf for a moment, warning him. "I'm gonna put you down now so I can kiss Eames a bit."

"More than a bit, I hope?"

"Of course- and you'll be so busy kissing me that you won't keep apologizing for things I've already forgiven you for."

Arthur had already but the phone down, so he could grasp Eames by the shirtfront and yank him closer, planting one on him that lasted for more than a minute, wasn't chaste, and included much of what Arthur avoided displaying in front of the children for the sake of delaying any sort of talks concerning the birds and the bees, the flowers and the trees, or Uncle Arthur and Mr. Eames. Needless to say, the kiss involved judicious use of tongue.

From somewhere near their feet, the peevish voice of Yusuf called, "Eww, you're doing something disgusting, aren't you?"

Eames pulled away from Arthur for just a minute, "Arthur's just putting his words into my mouth."

"That was a lot dirtier than it sounded."

"But you love it, Arthur!"

"Ugh, why did I try to talk to you guys about this?"

"Because we are the only couple with a reasonably healthy relationship that you know of or because I happened to call you about something important. Now, I'm gonna have to call you back about that important thing."

"Why?!" the chemist squawked in indignation.

The reason was furiously mouthing things at them because the windcrafting Eames put in place was obviously distorting Dom's voice as Eames had the means to give them a private conversation where what they said couldn't be heard by others and what others said didn't particularly matter.

Arthur looked at Cobb briefly and said to Eames, "I think lunch is ready."

Eames released the crafting with a wave of his hand, unable to stop the smug look from appearing on his face.

"We'll give you a call back, Yusuf."

When Arthur got his phone off the floor and ended his call, he had to face the disapproving look on Cobb's face, the way that Eames couldn't help sniggering in response to the look on Cobb's face, or the fact that the situation was getting more ridiculous by the second!

"Are you going to explain to me what you're doing?"

"No."

After a moment passed with Cobb squinting at the pair of dreamworkers, waiting to see if one or the other would say _anything_ , he gave up.

"I'm giving you lunch, not because I'm happy with you two making out in my hallway. I'm giving you lunch because I went to the trouble of making it and don't want it to go to waste."

"I'd check for ground up glass," was what Eames whispered into Arthur's ear as they went towards the kitchen, one arm looped around his darling's waist, one hand slipped into the back pocket of the point man's jean, keeping him close.

"I doubt he had much time to do that," Arthur answered quietly. "I mean, he's got the earthcrafting to do it, I'm sure. But unless he made separate bowls and mixed everything very carefully, he'd risk hurting himself or his kids. That's if he ground up glass at all."

"Want to truthfind him? A nice handshake or a brotherly hug followed with specifically worded questions and clever watercrafting?"

Arthur thought about it, but shook his head.

"Remember, we're worth more to him alive than dead."

"I'm not saying it would kill us, especially if we got to some water for healing purposes in enough time."

Cobb, who had entered the kitchen first, stuck his head out and narrowed his eyes at them, squinting in what could have been a wounded way.

"I'd appreciate it if you stopped talking about how I'm going to kill you by tampering with the food. I've only _just_ gotten James to start eating tuna again, only without onions. The last thing I need is for him to ask about ground up glass!"

Arthur shrugged at Eames's skeptical frown.

"Sounds safe enough."

"Well, you didn't get attacked by the alien spiders in his subconscious. I have every right to be suspicious!"

But they went into the kitchen anyways.

* * *

It turns out that Cobb developed a theme to their lunch that revolved around their problem.

"This tuna," Arthur said, taking a fork and poking the insides of his sandwich (sourdough bread, lightly toasted, sliced tomato and onion separated from the bread with a leaf of red leaf lettuce, still crunchy, acting as a barrier to keep the bread dry), "is green."

It was true. The children happily chomped down on their own sandwiches, which had been cut into triangles for Phillipa because she liked her sandwiches to be cut along the diagonal line and cut straight down the middle for James because he liked things simple.

They didn't seem to be worried about the color of their food, just eager to eat it and move on to their next activity. Cobb had clearly used food coloring to tint the tuna fish filling of their sandwiches green.

Eames looked over Arthur's shoulder, peeked at his own sandwich and found it to be the same.

"I might have preferred the ground glass, to be honest. I'm not too happy about the color green at the moment."

Cobb sat down at the head of the kitchen table and moved to eat his own lunch.

"I thought we needed to get back on track, so I give you an example of the stuff from the dream."

He waved at his sandwich and produced a flash drive, placing it next to his plate.

"We can talk about it like adults once lunch is over. I've got some stuff I'd like to show you, Arthur."

The point man nodded shortly, sat, and picked up his sandwich. When he took a bite, Arthur didn't need to look up at him to know where the quick in-drawn hiss of air came from.

"Do me a favor," Arthur said to Eames.

"Anything."

"Sit down with me, have lunch, and help me work through this problem. Because we're partners."

Eames inched closer to the chair, eyed his food as if it were capable of biting back, and then gingerly sat down.

"Thank you, Eames," Arthur dabbed at the corner of his mouth with a napkin and then asked Eames to pass the chips.

After a moment, Eames did so and then, with reservations and worries to his personal health and safety, took a bite of his own sandwich.

And what annoyed him most was that it was still a pretty damned good sandwich considering it was just tuna, and it was Cobb who made it and decided to tint it green.

* * *

Afterwards, after everything, after the visit was over, Arthur and Eames had a whole new job to plan for. Arthur began putting off other engagements- not because Cobb seemed to think that this thing was going to be a major threat to dreamers, but because it was interesting, challenging, and something he wanted to see to the end.

At the start of the visit, Arthur had made a note about the dark circles under Cobb's eyes, had made several jokes about the lack of sleep the other man may or may not be getting as a busy single-father. But he hadn't pushed the point because there was a lingering worry about how it was only a year after the inception and the catharsis that Cobb said had happened.

He worried to himself over a reappearance of Mal, maybe Cobb's descent into PASIV-addiction, dream chasing, or an eventual return to the work he'd sworn off.

And now he was learning that he had begun to do that anyway- using a PASIV to build dream levels to create like he used to, before Mal would appear and ruin everything Cobb tried to create without her there, without her alive.

After lunch was over, Cobb did exactly as he said he would once he'd gently shooed the children away, allowing them to watch television. He presented Arthur with the flash drive, passing it off as if it was a great weight, a burden, and then giving another explanation.

Before this was to happen, Eames pulled Arthur aside and said, "If he offers to take you under, don't do it."

Arthur rankled at that. If he wanted to see what Cobb was dreaming of, he'd do it.

"If you don't want me sharing dreams with him, why don't I share a dream with you and see if the idea is as contagious as he thinks it is?"

"I'm not sure that's a good idea."

Arthur's eyes had widened. "You're quarantining yourself."

"That's what Cobb should have done as soon as he found out- none of this stuff about wanting us to _see_ , or more accurately, wanting me to _see._ I'm telling you, he's never liked me and now he's punishing me for taking you away."

"No."

"Then he's punishing me for hurting you in the past."

"Once again, no."

"Well then why did he call you up to only avoid exposing you to it?"

"Maybe he wanted access to the next big thing in dreamshare?"

"I refuse to be flattered."

But it sort of worked anyway and Eames stopped being so annoyed by everything to do with their latest job.

"Are you going to show us more green tuna?" Eames had asked once they were alone again in the kitchen. Cobb had apparently prepared a larger visual aid made of green tuna.

"This," he said as they stood around the table eyeing a rather large platter of something covered in green tuna, "is an example of the croach." The former extractor looked at Arthur for confirmation, and when he nodded his agreement, Cobb continued. "It's a sort of gelatinous green waxy substance that covers an area experiencing an infestation of these monsters."

"The Vord," Arthur obediently supplied.

"You could have used actual wax from a green candle," Eames suggested, poking at the green tuna with a toothpick. "You could have covered this…wait, what _is_ this stuff your substitute croach is sitting on?"

"Cream Of Wheat," Cobb answered with pride.

"This is officially a disgusting meal," Eames couldn't stop himself from commenting. "It's also a wasteful visual aid, too."

"I could just drag you both back into the dream now and show you both what this stuff looks like- we could all get attacked by the damned spiders so you could be satisfied by the authenticity of the croach!"

Arthur put his hand on Cobb's arm, eyes narrowed as he caught onto something strange, noticing that something was missing from the man's story.

"You haven't mentioned projections. In your dreams, do you have any normal projections that are human?"

Cobb shook his head. "It's all spiders and those bizarre warrior Vord. The ones that look like dragonflies," the former extractor clarified for Arthur.

"You could have used green gelatin for the croach," Eames added, not joining in the conversation about projections, still stuck on the consistency of the weird substance coating the interior of Cobb's subconscious, lining the ground of his dreamscape.

Arthur didn't have to say anything to Eames; he just looked at the man and very briefly shook his head. That they would talk more later, of course. Eames could complain then, make comments about Cobb's process later. Make jokes about the green tinted tuna covering the plate of Cream of Wheat. About how there were children starving in China, how could Cobb be so wasteful?

But Eames didn't. He bit his tongue and nodded to Arthur. Message received.

"-my projections, they just stopped." Cobb was saying to Arthur. "The first time the creatures began to appear in my dreams, they would be bitten by the spiders, sicken and die…and be used for food."

"How?"

Standing in front of his example of croach, Cobb crossed his arms and began to explain the process of entombing.

"I saw it in the subconscious of the man who came to me for help, thinking that what was happening in his head was a persistent dreamscape that needed to be dismantled like a carnival. He still had a few projections; the usual, men and women and children. The areas with croach had grown and grown and whenever his projections would get stuck in these places, they'd be bitten, poisoned by the spider bites. They'd be too weak to stop the spiders from opening up the croach and putting them inside."

Cobb demonstrated. He took a spoon and began to dig a small hole in the green tinted tuna, digging till he hit the Cream of Wheat, which had taken on a mushy consistency, the green food coloring bleeding into it. He took a small toy, a Lego man with a firefighter hat affixed to its head, and placed it into the little hole he had dug into the food.

"The Lego man is a projection that has been poisoned. Too weak to move, the spider or spiders which found it move it into the liquid portion of the croach." As he spoke, Cobb began to bury the Lego man. "The spiders push their prize into this green liquid and seal the croach back up again."

"The man who asked me to help him watched many of his projections meet this fate, and at the time, I wasn't sure what it meant. I didn't know the green substance was croach, what the poison did, what any of it meant…that's why I needed you."

Eames stared at the Lego man, concerned. "And now you've exposed me to the same fate. All of your projections are gone now, replaced with spiders and Vord and croach."

Cobb laughed, humorless and sad. "Oh, they're not gone. This is the sick part, the part that keeps me up at night. In the beginning I kept creating more projections, trying to fight them off. But you know how it is with any infestation. If you can't stop them from reproducing, if you don't destroy the nest, you'll never get rid of the things. My projections were taken, bitten, and entombed," Cobb's mouth twisted and he dropped the spoon he was using as a shovel. "They're still alive in there. Sort of alive, at least. I just don't know anymore. But I can't stop thinking about it."

"What does this liquid in the croach do?"

"In the beginning, I tried to dig my security projections out. I mean, they weren't buried so deep- I could see some of them under the wax. I would break the croach and that liquid would touch my skin, warm as blood but so, so strange. I'd attempt to pull them out, pulling at their clothes tugging them out…" Cobb swallowed hard. "It was like a pressure cooker in that gunk, so when I tugged the first guy out, his skin sort of sloughed off like it would off of a chicken breast. The bodies are turned into food. The liquid digests the bodies, clothes, weapons, and turns it into this highly nutritious food source."

Eames looked a little disgusted but was already thinking about what that delightful image was going to be like when he experienced it in _his_ dreams later.

It was disgusting, horrifying, and scary.

Arthur nodded, lost in thought for a moment but turning to look at Eames, no doubt sensing his horror. Standing nearer to Cobb, Arthur reached out over the table, wordlessly asking for contact with Eames.

Eames wasn't able to deny him. He reached for Arthur's hand like a man drowning. Their fingers touched, palms pressing together, and then Eames clung to Arthur's hand and waiting to get some sort of equilibrium back.

Arthur didn't say _Everything will be fine._ Arthur was a realist. So instead, he said to Cobb, "We'll take care of it. We'll get the team together and get to the bottom of things."

To Eames, Arthur said, "I'll play sentinel while you sleep and if you have these dreams I'll wake you."

"I don't want you to have to do that," Eames began, rethinking it and saying, "I don't want to be any trouble. I'm a grown man and can sleep through nightmares."

"Not every night. Not to something so disturbing. When I told you that I'd have your back, I meant it. This is what being a team entails and I know that if our positions were reversed, you would do the same for me."

Cobb was about to say something but abruptly buttoned his lip, looking down at the mess he'd made on the table. He tried to extract the Lego man and reconsidered it.

Arthur turned his head sharply, as if he'd heard someone call his name. "If you say it, Cobb, I'll hit you."

Cobb raised his hands in surrender. "I'm not saying anything."

The point man's eyes narrowed. "Yes, but I could _sense_ what you were feeling. I could probably feel it from a mile away. I get it, you're feeling guilty for pulling us into this, you feel bad for getting Eames to share the dream with you, but I'd like you to remember that we're professionals. That we'll try and fix this and get down to the bottom of the situation."

Arthur let go of Eames's hand to turn to face Cobb, unencumbered. "Get over your guilt the old fashioned way. You'll help us out by giving us all the information you have. I want the flash drive, I want your resources, and then, I want to you stop sticking your nose into dreamshare. All it's doing is getting you into trouble!"

Cobb didn't cower before Arthur, but he did very briefly nod and say, "I'm sure we'll talk about it later."

Later wasn't well defined and it could have meant when the issue was resolved or when they'd all gone mad or when Arthur came back seeking vengeance if Eames suffered.

"I'm gonna say goodbye to the kids," Arthur said, moving around the table so he could press a kiss against Eames's temple and leave the room.

When they were alone, Eames sighed and pulled out one of the kitchen chairs and sat heavily.

"I'm sorry, Eames."

Eames hummed. "It's hard to lie to a watercrafter, Cobb."

The former extractor sputtered, going a little red in the face.

"It's not that you're lying, Cobb. I do believe that you're actually sorry, but the emotion behind that has many levels. You're worried, you're scared, but now, you're also not alone." Eames spread his arms. "You've inducted me into the _look at the fucked up situation I'm in_ club. So you're also kind of _happy_."

Cobb didn't look like he knew what to say. He looked flustered and unsure, and finally he dropped down into his chair and put his head into his hands. " _Arthur's going to hate me._ "

Eames didn't say anything at first. Sighing, he did what he really didn't want to do now that he'd learned this new information, but tried to be the better person. "No, Cobb. You've forgotten Arthur's major character flaw, what could possibly make him a tragic hero. He's loyal to a fault. He's still your friend after what happened during the inception of Robert Fischer. He's probably just out there telling the kids that he loves them but he has to take care of something. But that he'll be back."

Cobb looked up at Eames and asked, "You're sure?"

The forger shrugged. "Its my personal opinion that despite anything I could ever say, Arthur will still stand by you because you and Mal helped him through a very difficult part of his life. You gave him purpose and goals to fight for. He had a job as long as he worked with you guys. He could go anywhere and do anything he wants now, but he still cares for you."

"It's the kids," Cobb muttered, "He's always had a soft spot for James and Phillipa. Did you know that the kids first words weren't Mommy or Daddy but a shortened, adorable version of Arthur's name?"

Eames snorted. "No."

"Yes," Cobb said, nodding quickly. "We have home movies where they follow him around like ducklings, calling his name. They called him _Awtha_ until they learned how to pronounce it correctly."

Uncle _Awtha_ reappeared at that moment, catching the last bit of what Cobb was saying. "Oh god, not that again. If you say that name in front of them, they'll start calling me that _just_ because I worked so hard to teach them how to say it the right way."

"Arthur, they were babies!"

"That's not a great argument for speaking in baby talk when you're almost seven and ten years of age."

"They'll only do it because you think its annoying."

"If they do," Arthur warned, "I'm going to make them walk on their hands and recite the alphabet _backwards_. Don't think I won't, Cobb."

Eames looked from Arthur to Cobb and back again. He said, "I don't think I know what's happening anymore."

"Don't worry about it," Arthur said, "Since they were toddlers I taught them how to spell and count."

"While teaching them how to tumble and do flips," Cobb added.

"Like it's a bad thing?"

"When their teachers tell me that they're teaching other kids how to do gymnastics and spell words like 'dandelion' while standing on their heads, it's given me a weird reputation, okay?"

Arthur rolled his eyes. "They want to argue with results? With my methods, your kids learned math and spelling faster than their classmates. _And_ they kept studying!"

"You made my children little gymnasts."

"Gymnastics isn't that bad a skill. It helped me kick ass in zero-gravity."

"And this seems like a good point to end on- we're all happy and making jokes," Eames said, getting to his feet and pointedly ignoring the disgusting plate of food still sitting on the table.

Cobb came to his feet as well, ready to see them out. Cobb had already given Arthur the flash drive and sort of lingered there awkwardly at the front door.

Arthur sighed and pulled the man forwards into a hug. "You're a lot of work, Cobb. But you're still my friend."

"Thanks," Cobb said softly.

"I'm not saying that I'm happy about this situation, though, okay? I want that to be clear."

"Got it," Cobb said, still hugging his former point man.

"Because, I agreed with Eames that we would work together, just us. This doesn't count as a job where I'm your point man. You are my client, got it?"

"Of course," Cobb said as they separated, trying to restore some sense of professionalism that had been lost after the hugging.

"Good," Arthur said, the smile dropping off of his face and shifting to the familiar mask he wore when working with clients. "I need this to be clear; any action you take that even slightly endangers yourself, me, or my partner, will lead to my terminating your contract and quitting this job. Immediately."

Cobb's eyes widened. "But-"

"No, Cobb. I have rules. I have precautions that I shoved aside when you asked us over. You may be my friend, I may even love you like a brother, but this sort of bug-fuckery stops right now. So if you pull another stunt like you did with Eames today, we're both walking away while we're still sane."

Cobb nodded, maybe too intimidated by Arthur to challenge him.

Arthur accepted this and moved to Eames's side, "Let's go to the hotel, we've got some work to do."


	4. Chapter 4

A.N: If this is the last thing I write in 2016, I'll be happy. Sort of. Maybe I'll just feel productive? This dialogue heavy chapter is where my plot ran out of steam during NaNo. From this chapter on, I'll be filling in the section of my first draft labeled "The Things I'll fix, change, or rewrite after Novemeber".

Disclaimer: I don't own Inception or Codex Alera. I don't own the A-Team either.

Though it was summer, the temperature dropped sharply after the sun set. Their hotel room, not the Cobb's guest room, was pleasantly warm with the heater set at seventy degrees. But still, Eames shivered while wrapped up in blankets, wrapped up in _Arthur,_ trying very, very hard to court sleep. And he was failing.

"Is bug-fuckery even a word, darling?" Eames asked Arthur as they lay in bed. The red glow of their room's digital clock, positioned just so on the bedside table, told Eames that he had been attempting to sleep for a little over an hour. Traffic had been bad, dinner had been late, and they were both too tired to enjoy their free time together in a place where children wouldn't knock on the door while they were trying to be intimate. Or where the children's father wouldn't be annoying for bother them about crazy jobs they now had no choice but to take on, if only to retain their sanity and well-being.

"Dunno," Arthur said, already close to falling asleep, cuddling into Eames's warmth, and stealing the covers. Not that Eames minded that. "Sounded like a good word to use considering the situation."

"Is Cobb really your friend, almost like a brother?"

Arthur shrugged and pressed his face against Eames's shoulder. "Sure. We went through a lot of crazy shit together, Eames. It's hard to ignore a good chunk of your life because you're pissed off about his most recent escapade."

"I might go crazy when I wake up next. Depending on if I dream. Maybe." For Eames, the worst part was not being exactly certain that it was going to happen to him.

Arthur was silent for a moment. "Let's not think about that sort of thing, okay?"

Eames plucked at the material of the hotel blanket, finding a frayed portion that he began to unravel thread by thread. It was a little scratchy but occupied the forger's attention well enough.

"He could be exaggerating what he learned. We still don't know about possible Somnacin issues or anything about that first team."

Eames halfheartedly agreed but he didn't want to mention to Arthur how Cobb's dream had felt. Despite how outlandish, the setting of Cobb's nightmare was very realistic...

"Goodnight, darling," Eames said, feeling his eyes grow heavier with each passing minute.

"G' night, Eames," Arthur answered, somehow managing to work his way even closer to Eames as they lay in bed. It was comforting to Eames, reminding him that Arthur was there, that Arthur had reminded him of what he'd said so long ago.

 _But I meant what I said- after this job, I intend to start over with you. And if you ever have to run again, you'll be running with me at your side, watching your back._

They might not be running away together to be badass dream criminals, but the sentiment was still the same. Eames now had a problem; his dreams may or may not, have been infected with a host of rapidly reproducing monsters. His sleep would be effected, his dreams would be haunted, and his work would most definitely suffer. But Arthur was going to watch his back, he was going to wake him from those dreams, and that together they'd find a solution to this problem. This disturbing, messed up problem...

He tried not to think of it. Any of it. Because he truly was tired- the day before, he'd finally _flown_! That thought sent a hopeful spark burning in his chest, it made him happier. He would have to practice some more, get better acquainted with his new wind fury. That maybe someday he'd be as good as Arthur was. Maybe.

Because it wasn't impossible, just bloody difficult. Much like inception.

With those hopeful thoughts in his head, Eames finally managed to drift off to sleep, closing his eyes and ignoring the bright red digital numbers of the nearby alarm clock.

* * *

"I don't want to talk about it," was what Eames managed to say when he woke from the first nightmare that night, unable to force himself out of the bed and away from Arthur's worried, sleepy expression. Even tired, driven to wakefulness by Eames's aborted, muffled cry upon being shocked from his nightmare, Arthur assessed the situation almost as quickly as if he'd been working a job. Even though Eames didn't want to talk about it, that wasn't going to stop Arthur from showing his concern.

Eames didn't need an interrogation; no shouting for information, no threats. Arthur wasn't going to be able to use extraction techniques to learn what Eames had dreamed about. It wasn't necessary.

"You okay?" Was what Arthur asked instead, watching Eames carefully and giving the other man the space he clearly needed. Arthur had scooted to the edge of the bed, as far away from Eames as he could get and still remain on the bed. The sheets and mattress were cold and he didn't like it, but he was willing to do whatever Eames needed at this point.

Eames considered the question and nodded. "It was just a little…intense."

It was clear that Eames didn't want to dwell on the subject and was already curling up on his side, without any blankets, flipping his pillow over so he'd not lay his head back down on the too warm, sweaty pillowcase. He shivered.

"Do you want some of the covers back?" Arthur asked, already smoothing out the wrinkled blanket, pushing the bunched folds closer to Eames's bare back. The forger wasn't even risking rolling over to face him.

As soon as some of the covers touched his back, Eames stiffened ever so slightly before relaxing and shaking his head. "No, no. I don't want to feel so confined."

Arthur didn't go back to sleep after that, intent on watching over his partner, and looking for the signs of a nightmare. Eames didn't talk in his sleep, so when he had a nightmare or any remotely distressing dream, it was hard to tell immediately.

Well, hard if the one watching wasn't Arthur.

Much later, once Eames had finally fallen into a light doze which finally deepened enough for REM sleep to occur, Arthur caught the first signs easily enough.

With the full sleep paralysis in effect, Eames wasn't able to act out his dreams- no running, no hiding, no fighting, and no furycrafting. But his hands and feet twitched feebly.

With his watercrafting, Arthur was able to sense the forger's shifting emotional state, not even having to lay a finger on him to feel it- this deeply asleep and this upset, Eames was broadcasting.

But Arthur's metalcrafting was strong enough to allow him to keep his head around people experiencing powerful emotions. It kept his watercrafting from overwhelming him, but just to be sure, he asked his water fury to lower the carefully constructed barrier a watercrafter learned to place between themselves and others.

Then Eames's emotions rushed over him like water that just a little too hot; Arthur could almost feel his skin prickling with the strange phantom pain, his empathic gifts flooding him with information, with the emotions of his partner.

Arthur ignored his discomfort and for a lack of a better word, listened in on Eames's dreams, much like he would have done for James or Phillipa when they were little and just getting twisted up in a bad dream he'd best wake them from. But Arthur had to keep watch over Eames to avoid risks accompanied with suddenly waking a crafter of his strength and ability.

The point man closed his eyes and sensed it all. First, Eames's rising _fear_ which was accompanied by his _anger._ He was so, so, angry. But underneath that was a feeling that Arthur couldn't quite name at first. If he had to give it a name, Arthur would call it _hopeless_. In his dreams, Eames was fighting a losing battle.

Keeping his attention on Eames's fluctuating emotional state, Arthur waited for a lull as maybe the dream shifted and became a little less coherent.

He chose that moment to reach out and place one hand against the side of Eames's face, tracing a line with two fingers till he was pressing them against the forger's temple. Calling on his water fury, Arthur said, "Wake up." The power behind those words, power from his fury, from his worry, shot to Eames and made the man's eyes snap open as he jerked forwards in a full body twitch familiar to every person who wakes suddenly from a nightmare where they have died.

Breathing heavily, Eames carefully rolled over to look at Arthur and said, "Thanks."

They were quiet for a moment, Eames trying to get his breathing back in control, eventually sounding less like he'd been running a mile and getting back to normal.

"Want to talk about it?"

At first, it looked like Eames was going to say no. Then he reconsidered. "You know the dreams where you've been buried alive?"

Arthur nodded, having been made very familiar with the horror of being buried alive during his furycraft training. It had eventually made his earthcrafting better, considering how if he hadn't gotten better at it, he'd have been left in a hole six feet deep, wrapped in chains, and wished the best of luck getting out without help before he suffocated!

"Could you earthcraft your way out?"

Eames shook his head, still looking a bit pale. "That croach isn't earth, it can't be treated like dirt or stone. Nothing I did could move it. Those spiders sealed up the opening in the croach and I couldn't get out…"

"But what did you do?" Arthur wasn't going to ask about the way he died, if Eames knew…For someone who had been buried alive, the methods of death were pretty simple. Suffocation, primarily. While there were shallow, shallow pockets of air available to a talented earthcrafter, they would become depleted rapidly. And from everything Arthur had already learned about this substance, he doubted Eames would have been able to even siphon air through the fluid like he would if he were trapped underwater, using his watercrafting to help him breath.

"They didn't bite me," Eames was explaining, "they just sealed me up inside the croach like they were saving me for later as a light snack. I had learned that these bugs, at least the ones shaped like spiders, didn't really have the strength to put their fangs through steel, I armored up long before being buried. It was a good thing I did because it made me last longer."

Arthur frowned. "You used your metalcraft to keep calm. You used the metalcraft to coat your skin with the armor, protecting you from the digestive quality of the fluid."

Eames nodded, licking his lips and continuing on with the story. "It was a bad idea. It was so _warm_ in there that I thought I was going to boil inside my armor. It hurt so much aside from the temperature, promise me you'll never metalcraft like that up above, okay? It's a bad idea."

"If the situation calls for it, I'd have to try it," Arthur rationalized, understanding Eames's worry, sensing his fears. "How long did you last down there?"

"I don't know," Eames answered. "It was hard to keep track of time down there. Those bugs are wiping out my projections, even if I try and dream something else."

"You've not used the PASIV in a little bit, it's allowing you to dream naturally. You wouldn't have as much control over your dreams anyways," Arthur was already trying to come up with a way around the Vord-infested dreams. "We can test with the PASIV and see how it works."

"I don't think it will work," Eames cautioned. "That and I don't want you to go under with me if you can avoid it."

This would remain a bone of contention between them because for as long as this was a problem, they'd not be able to work together or dream together.

"Try and rest for now, Eames," Arthur advised, rather than get into a depressing argument with few solutions.

* * *

"I just want to say," Yusuf began as he sat in a chair, at a table, in a warehouse that Arthur secured as their base of operations, "that this is the craziest idea I have ever heard of."

It was months later; two months spent by Arthur doing research and discovering that the original team had been lost. That they may have well have been a mythical team. They were ghosts now, they were gone.

Every search for them lead only to the evidence that they had been the one's to spread this mysterious ailment among dreamers that they dreamed with and with clients or marks they had dreamed with before disappearing.

Arthur had carefully, painstakingly created a board that showed the descent of the affliction and all known people it had spread to. The very last entry was Eames; the very first entries were only now being filled in with something other than question marks.

"The idea is as sound as it's going to get- I've found the barest information on the project the team was working on before they went missing."

"And how did you even find that?" Ariadne asked, pushing a apricot Danish around her paper plate without taking another nibble from it. She passed it to Yusuf who immediately set to work demolishing it; tearing it into neat little pieces, licking the apricot filling off of his thumb and watching her argue with Arthur.

"I called in a favor from a friend," Arthur said shortly, getting back on topic. "So much of what's related to the furycraft research is on the blackmarket- I'm talking artifacts, techniques, and theories of fury crafting, as well. I think that this has something to do with the research community. I think that they went underground."

Eames, eyes bloodshot and tired from two months of nightmares, nodded heavily. "It's the only thing we can think of- the military division that discovered furycrafting with Project PASIV, they only scratched the surface. Its possible that some scientists with a black market PASIV and a filing system with scraps of information on these Vord, decided to try and recreate them in dreams."

"But _why_?" Ariadne asked.

"Why do people study samples of diseases? They want to learn more about it, to find ways to fight it if it comes back later on. It wouldn't be completely implausible that the Alerans which returned and made it possible for us to furycraft, brought some form of their greatest adversary with them."

"And it's lain dormant all this time?"

Arthur shook his head, leaning his chair on its back legs and thinking. "No. We've already talked about how infectious an idea is. How powerful it is. What if some idiot decided to incept someone with the idea that they were the Vord?"

"Not just the Vord, darling. _The Vord Queen._ "

Eames sighed and rested his head on his folded arms, which he rested on the table.

"And that's just wonderful," Eames muttered. "Now all we need is to find out that this pseudo-Vord Queen was a crafter as well as a member of that dreamshare team."

"What make you say that?" Ariadne couldn't help but ask.

"Because," the forger said, lifting his head up just enough to look at the board, to examine the names that were at the very top, and frown darkly. "The only one we have no intelligence on, the one who may well have truly vanished, is someone I knew. She was a forger _and_ a crafter."

"Shit," Yusuf said, pushing away his mangled Danish. "You can't be saying that! That's even more ridiculous than before!"

"I've barely slept in two months, Yusuf," Eames needlessly explained. "If I say that I know the woman, I know the woman."

"Not likely, from what I've heard from our latest client," Arthur said, already passing out new folders.

Eames, sullen, tired and longing for resolution to this horrific problem, stared at Arthur.

"We have to find and face down an incepted Vord Queen and now you're presenting us with a job?"

The others nodded, fingers inching towards the closed folders, wanting to be lured in by something that sounded _normal_ and _safe_ like an extraction.

"Before you guys get too excited, I want you to know that this is still related to our other job."

As if he were trying to make it clearer, Arthur made sure to circle one of the empty slots on their chart, one of the four that were at the top.

"One of the members of the original team has surfaced- he wants us to find out where his girlfriend, the one who reportedly believes she's a Vord Queen, was taken. He wants her back because he thinks he can help bring her back to her senses." Arthur nodded to Eames. "And that's what I meant by 'not likely'. You might not recognize her if she's fallen that far into forging a Vord Queen that she now believes it to be true."

Convenient. A very convenient way to get closer to this person.

"Call him up," Eames said, leaning back in his chair and wondering if this would get him one step closer to sleeping without the aid of prescription medications.

* * *

No one was out and out expecting it to be Nash. Considering that the man Arthur had vetted and researched had no _connections_ to Nash, shitty architect, it could only be assumed that this was just par for the course- having to rely on the unreliable, needing to believe the unbelievable.

When Nash, now going by Brad, no last name offered, cringed at the sight of the inception team, sans Cobb, he froze. It was clear that once he saw Arthur hadn't come alone, Nash began weighing the pros and cons of running away. He stayed put.

Arthur had given him instructions to wait for them at a neutral place. He had been waiting at the counter of a slow diner Arthur had listed in the email, nursing a cup of coffee and waiting nervously.

When Nash spotted them, he coughed and gestured them over. He started with a bad joke.

"Did you ever hear the about the guy who was frozen to absolute zero," Nash asked, waiting a moment to deliver the punch line. "He's OK now."

Yusuf snorted, trying and failing to suppress his laughter.

Arthur wasn't pleased, but he was willing to do exactly as a good point man should. He moved to take the seat nearest to Nash, open up his Moleskine and began to take notes.

"You changed your identity from _you_ to Brad. And then you went back to your old identity. Nice. Not the name that I would have chosen."

Nash was a little surprised. "I didn't expect…any of this, to be honest." And then, in response to Arthur's criticism, "What's wrong with the name Brad? It's a perfectly good name."

Arthur rolled his eyes, searched within himself for the strength to avoid his very first instinct when in Nash's presence. Arthur took a calming breath and thought, _I will not break his hand with that salt shaker. I will not hit him with that half-full cup of coffee._

"Just because I'm sitting here, ready to work, doesn't mean I'm happy to see you, Nash. I'm not getting into a bitchy argument about the name you've chosen to go by after your last bad job. I need your information as much as you need my team's assistance."

Nash, still skinny, still oily haired and weaselish in the face, looked at Arthur with hope. "You mean that you're over how I sold you out before?"

Eames sat down heavily on Nash's other side, managing to loom though he didn't feel the old energy for it. Nash flinched when Eames settled so close, turning to look at the forger with a little more fear. "If I were you, I wouldn't mention things like that during what amounts to an interview. We could easily walk away."

The slight man's face went pale and he broke out into a sweat. "Please, no! You guys have got to help me find her! She's all I got!"

Yusuf and Ariadne went to sit at the counter, too, observing the show as it was Arthur and Eames's job to question their client further.

"We aren't the A-Team," Arthur said as he continued to scribble. "We aren't the team you hire to right wrongs or rescue people. We're the team you hire when you want to steal someone's ideas, learn a secret, or fuck with your enemy's base of power. Dreamshare is wonderful that way. I've gone over the particulars of your problem and need to know more," Arthur chose that moment to look up at Nash, keeping him nailed to his stool with a stare.

"Like what?"

"Like what were you working on when your girlfriend Michelle went missing?"

Nash looked around, spotted a bored waitress chewing bubble gum, and hardly any customers waiting for food or drink. Most of the tables were empty, anyway.

"We could move to a roomy booth if you guys want? We'd be less conspicuous…"

"I'm fine here," Arthur said, still waiting for an answer.

"I'm fine wherever Arthur is," Eames added, leaning against the counter and staring at Nash equally as hard as Arthur was.

"We could go either way," Yusuf said, speaking for both him and Ariadne, but then looked at his girlfriend and asked, "Unless you would like to sit in a booth?"

She shrugged and watched the strange interactions between the point man, forger, and the architect who came before her.

"If we're going to sit here much longer, I'd like to have some refreshment." Then Ariadne signaled the waitress, politely waving to her so she could come to take her order.

"We don't care about where we're sitting, just tell us what you know or we walk," Arthur said, leaving no room for arguments.

Finally, Nash swallowed and nodded for them. Arthur very quickly called on his fury, crafting a veil of silence around them so that their conversation wouldn't be overheard, even though the diner was pretty dead.

From the way that Nash rubbed at his ears, he was aware of the pressure there as the fury pressed the air closer to them all in a neat circle. He ignored it and began to speak.

"It was just the four of us- we were called in on really cushy research job."

"What was being researched?" Eames asked.

"Alera," Nash said with a shrug. "They were attempting to recreate aspects of the societies and wanted to experience what it would be like to live in such a time, based upon the popular research that had already been completed or by artifacts that have already been uncovered."

"They wanted you to build Alera as it was and then depict it during a Vord attack," Arthur said.

Nash blinked. "Well, not like that. Not really. They wanted the world, the culture, and the people. _And_ a Vord Queen."

"But how did your team know what a Vord Queen behaved like? Did you have a copy of the histories?"

Nash nodded. "We all did. The histories of Alera are so common on the black market, it's not even funny. We studied the time and the environment. I built the dream and Michelle, she forged the queen."

Nash turned to look at Eames, speaking to him earnestly. "But after she performed the role for them a few times, she started to act kind of weird. She went under a lot by herself so the researchers could observe her, as if she were truly a Vord Queen."

Eames hummed to himself. "Its not unusual to get too wrapped up in the forgery. It happens to the best of us. But the fact that she was taken so much by the idea, that she fooled herself into believing the forgery, that's bad."

"What are you saying?" Nash said, visibly bristling at Eames's tone. "Are you saying that she got stuck like that and it was her fault? Are you saying that she was to blame?"

Eames shook his head. "You don't get it. I worked with Michelle before; forgers are rare enough that when we run into each other, we tend to keep in touch, to trade news back and forth. I hadn't heard from her in some time and wondered what happened. If she practically incepted herself into thinking that she's a Vord Queen, we may have a harder job than we expected."

The waitress had arrived at the counter and Arthur lifted the aircrafting so that Ariadne could order something.

"One hot fudge sundae, no nuts, extra cherries please," Ariadne said to the waitress, who was still bored, nodding at Ariadne's request and only appearing interested when the architect added, "Two spoons, please."

The waitress briefly cast a look in Yusuf's direction, assessing the pair both he and Ariadne made, before moving on. Once the waitress was gone, Arthur cast the crafting again. Once more, Nash rubbed at his ears.

"You guys feeling this, too? Its like I've got water in my ears or something!"

"No idea what you're talking about," Eames lightly said. "Keep talking."

"Not long after Michelle started to act weird, my team was paid and we left. We did what we normally did. We separated and left, exchanging numbers so we could reconnect for other jobs. I was actually doing okay, you know?" Nash said to Arthur a shade vindictively. "My designs aren't bad. I'm not as shitty an architect as you think."

Arthur frowned. "Let's not make this more uncomfortable than necessary."

"Was it Cobb who had that opinion? Or was it you?"

This wasn't the time for arguments about former job performance or how Nash had been a pretty awful architect.

"I was the point man for an extractor nobody wanted to work with. I found people in dreamshare who were willing to work with a loose cannon who had uncontrolled projections," Arthur explained. "Most often, I wasn't spoiled for choice."

"I'm not a bad architect!" Nash hissed!

"I think the phrase we're looking for is _you didn't meet their standards,_ " Ariadne said, putting in her two cents. "I doubt that it was good when you screwed up the carpet. I think that it was worse when you sold the team out," Ariadne said before smiling at the waitress as returned with a hot fudge sundae, with two spoons and extra cherries floating in a bowl of syrup.

"My contribution to this conversation is over, ice cream has been acquired," she said with a wave of her spoon, digging it into the bowl of pitted cherries, sprinkling them over her desert and nudging the ice cream dish closer to the chemist. Yusuf picked up the other spoon, saying, "Thanks for remembering to leave out the nuts."

"You're going to walk just because you hate me," Nash was saying bitterly. "I'm never going to find her!"

Then, after sharing a glance over Nash's bowed head, Arthur and Eames took action.

"Don't say it like that, Nash," Arthur sighed, sounding almost regretful as he laid one hand on the wiry man's shoulder.

"If we thought you were lying to us," Eames said with a private, now rare smile due to his lack of pleasant dreams, a smile that he reserved only for his darling. "We'd be able to tell for sure. Wouldn't we, darling?"

Arthur smiled back and began to truthfind, calling on his water fury and not taking his hand away from Nash.

"Tell me," Arthur said, performing the subtle art of truthfinding, searching for the truth in Nash's words. "Have you heard anything about the project you were previously working on?"

"No," Nash said, shaking his head.

"Are you certain?" Eames asked Nash, only looking at Arthur and shaking his head slightly, their agreed upon signal for sensing lies.

Nash's head snapped in Eames's direction. "This isn't an interrogation!" Then he looked at Arthur again, expression worried. "It isn't, is it?"

One cue, Eames called on his earthcrafting to soothe away Nash's worry, to calm the man like a spooked horse.

Nash visibly relaxed, even reached for his coffee to take a sip, though the stuff had to be stone cold by now.

"I can assure you that this is normal. I get that you're worried for her safety. I just need to know more about the people who hired you."

Nash nodded, eager to please. "Like I said before, they are researchers."

"Government, military, or other?"

" _Other_ ," Nash said. His words rang with truth, clear as a bell. "I tried to describe it before but I can tell you want a little more specificity, right?"

"Fuck, use that word more than once and it gets a point man a reputation," Arthur said to himself. Then he answered Nash's question with a nod, saying, "Always."

"They operate out of the desert. I they set up shop in a wasteland. Before we got started they put us through a series of tests to see if we could survive in the environment, in case the facility had to be evacuated. Safety measures and such."

"Such as?"

"Physicals, psych evaluations, and field survival."

Arthur shared a look with Eames, who nodded. _True, true, true._

"They wanted us to prove that we could make fires, find plants that were safe to eat, that we had the stamina to run, to find and fetch water…"

 _True_.

"They were trying to see if any of you were capable of furycraft."

Nash was probably about to say something like _I don't know what you're talking about, that sounds crazy, what's furycraft supposed to mean?_ but stopped.

"Don't play stupid, Nash," Arthur advised. "You may lie a lot in this business, you may have stabbed me and several other dreamworkers in the back to save your hide, but it will not have given you the ability to lie to my face."

Nash licked his lips, searching for words and finding only the wrong ones. "How about your back?"

Arthur increased the pressure on Nash's shoulder. "I'm not in the mood for playing, Nash. Have you forgotten that I used to almost know what you were thinking, way back when? That I'd hear something that you swore up and down you didn't say, but just so happened to _whisper_ within range of me?"

"You're one of them?" Nash whispered, half in horror and half in awe. "You're one of the one's they were looking for!"

Arthur snorted. "Fuck, no. Those researchers wanted to weed out the crafters and took one hell of chance. Your girl, your Michelle was a forger who got sucked into her own forgery. _And_ she had some crafting that one of _their_ crafters was listening for when they observed her during the evaluations. So after their study went to shit-"

"But we don't know that for a fact, darling."

"-okay, it _might have gone to shit_ , but they scored a PASIV-addled dreamsharer who not only is a crafter, but thinks she's a Vord Queen. They thought they hit the jackpot. So they allow the rest of the team to believe the job is over, allow them to disperse, and keep Michelle for study."

Nash was watching Arthur carefully, as if looking for some trick. "Why are you doing this? Why did you even take this job? A minute ago you didn't even believe me, now you're saying that there's something big going on to do with this _furycraft_ junk! There's another reason why you're doing this and I want to know what it is!"

"I don't have to tell you," Arthur said, just as chilly as before. "Let me ask you another question. How have you been sleeping lately? Have any strange dreams?"

Nash's eyes widened. "You- you know about them, too? You know about them already?"

Eames placed one hand on Nash's other shoulder, probably sensing before the wiry architect did that he'd felt an aching desire to flee. Eames pressed the man more firmly on the stool as he said, "Our boy feels very frightened, darling."

"Never our boy, Mr. Eames," Arthur couldn't help chiding the forger.

"But he'll do?" Eames was saying, still keeping their client calm.

"We'll take the job, Nash," Arthur said to his new client.

Then he reached over, pressed his fingers against Nash's temple and commanded him to _sleep_.

Nash immediately fell forwards and would have landed open-mouthed on his coffee cup, chipping his teeth on the rim of the mug, had Ariadne not slipped off her stool and grabbed him by his hair, pulling his head away from the danger in the nick of time!

"This," Ariadne emphasized with a shake of Nash's head, "was the architect who came before me?" Nash, sleeping and unaware of how close he came to needing cosmetic dentistry, snored loudly.

"Not everyone who works in dreamshare is amazing on the first try, Ariadne," Yusuf explained as he paid for their ice cream and Nash's coffee, leaving a decent tip, too.

Ariadne scoffed and quickly pulled Nash into a fireman's carry, calling on her earthcrafting for extra strength.

They hardly needed to perform a shielding with their crafting; the bored waitress was busy with her nose in a magazine and didn't notice them carrying out the last customer.


	5. Chapter 5

A.N: I'm very slowly stitching together the story with half-written scenes or complete rewrites. I won't have a lot of time for writing this year, but will do my best to finish this.

Disclaimer: I don't own Inception or Codex Alera. Errors will be corrected later.

Their hasty exit was met with the best of news.

A van slid into the driveway of the diner and as the door opened it revealed Saito, leaning out and smiling.

"Need a lift?"

"Yes," Arthur said, smooth and efficient but still a teensy bit surprised by the man's arrival. Their tourist had returned!

The team, mindful of possible witnesses, loaded Nash into the van before piling in themselves. Saito returned to his seat once Arthur and Eames had taken the three seats in the very back, placing Nash between them. Yusuf called shotgun and climbed into the front passenger seat, sharing a chummy smile with the stoic driver. Ariadne took the last seat next to Saito, the van door closing after one insistent tug accompanied by a mechanical whirring noise.

Thankfully Nash was unconscious, so he didn't freak out at the sight of the man he tried to sell his former team to and who had him taken away to somewhere far from Dom Cobb. The noise of the door closing didn't wake him, either.

"Nash is looking…well?" The business man said speculatively, eyeing the former architect slumped in between Arthur and Eames, turning in his seat to try and get a decent look at the man.

Because Eames was seated on Nash's left side he had a chance to frown and examine the still sleeping client. "I don't know. Does he look better or worse than when you last saw him, darling?"

Arthur was seated on Nash's right, busy pulling out his phone to look at his messages. "Tired, definitely. Probably because of the nightmares going around. He looks a bit thinner but other than that he doesn't look so bad. Maybe this Michelle had a positive influence on him."

Ariadne was rubbing her hand against the leg of her pants, grimacing a bit. "Could she have influenced him to try a different brand of shampoo?"

Arthur waved the complaint away, pressing a few buttons on his phone before putting it away.

"Sorry I didn't get your message, Saito. It was very kind of you to give us a hand."

"I owed you more than money," Saito said as he was still turned in their direction, his fingers resting against his open shirt collar to press against his noticeably bare neck. "If it wasn't for your hard work, for _all_ of your hard work, I would have never been freed from Fischer's discipline collar. When you mentioned the problem, I thought I would help you solve it."

"So you found it?" Arthur leaned forwards, hand on his knees, eager to hear more. "I used all of my resources, called in every favor, but I couldn't find out who was behind this research project!"

Saito had the grace to look a little embarrassed. "Money has its ways of getting information. I was glad to be of any help. It was so bizarre, but this particular group believes that there will be a new invasion, that the Vord will be back soon." Saito rolled one shoulder in a shrug. "So they set about creating their own for research and defense purposes. Just as you theorized."

"Idiots," Arthur cursed under his breath. "Even from what we've learned about the creatures, they change their shape and some methods of attack almost every time."

"Give us a refresher," Yusuf asked. "Not all of us have read these histories."

"Be thankful you don't have the nightmares, then." Eames cleared his throat. "First off, their most recent form was like an insect. The drones, the workers, were these strange spiders. The spider is about the size of dog, is venomous, and constantly repairs and spreads the croach, which is the waxy green substance that covers most vegetation and serves as a food source for the creatures. Never break it or damage it in any way. You'll alert the creatures that live around and _inside_ it."

Eames went on to describe the warriors.

"With the scythed forelimbs they can tear you apart. _And_ some can fly! There are wasps with stingers several inches long. There are takers, these small Vord creatures that can crawl inside people or even animals as they slept, taking over the body and using it as a shell, killing anything that gets in their path and are almost unstoppable as they feel no pain or fear. They just obey the Vord Queen. And the Vord Queen is terrifying- in dreams and reality. All of these creatures are born from it- all of them obey it. It will devour the world, assimilating and destroying everything that is not of the Vord."

Outside, the summer weather was darkening, as if to add drama to Eames's story. A light rain began to patter against the town car windows, a sprinkle or a drizzle of rain that would probably not even make them cold if they were outside. For now it just decorated the windows, leaving little speckled designs to catch the light when the clouds would finally shift.

"I doubt that they've gotten that far," Arthur said reassuringly.

Saito cleared his throat, apologetic but pointed. This only made Arthur frown.

"You've got to be kidding me. I thought that this was good news…"

"I found the researchers, I found their location, and I'm reasonably certain that this Michelle is being kept there."

"But only reasonably," Eames added, making sure that Nash was wearing a seat belt before securing his own.

Saito nodded, agreeing with Eames but continuing to speak. "It's the best we have to go on, Mr. Eames. I have all the information ready for your team and some of my best men ready to assist you."

"Furycrafting is likely to be involved, Saito," Arthur warned. "According to Nash his team had been tested for signs of crafting. It's possible that there will be more crafters hidden away at this place. Since we've agreed to take Nash's job, it looks like we'll be going on a rescue mission. But first we have to prepare for the worst."

There was a silence that even the hum of engine couldn't break. So Ariadne spoke her mind.

"We're going to steal a crazy woman from a group of people who can craft like we do?"

Arthur laughed just a little in response to that. "We'll do more than that. I want to rescue Michelle for Nash, I want to steal their research, and then I want to burn those facilities to the ground. I'm going to figure out how the original team became infected and then I'm going to stop the Vord dreams."

Arthur leaned forwards just a bit so he could see around Nash and look at Eames. "I'm going to fix this. I promised."

"This has branched off into a much larger job," Eames muttered. "It won't be quick or pretty. I doubt that we'll be able to just sneak in."

"We'll go through the front door," Arthur said, getting comfortable and making sure he was belted in. "If this place is looking for crafters, let's allow Nash to do the heavy lifting for us- he'll try and win their favor and a chance to see Michelle if he hands us over."


	6. Chapter 6

p align="left"Waking Nash wasn't fun./p  
p align="left"Arthur used his waterfury to bring the man back to consciousness. He didn't count on Nash being a flailer; the type that nearly wind milled his arms and lurched forewords in his seat when forcibly awoken via crafting. Thankfully his being belted into his seat in the van helped him stay in one spot; Nash didn't flail as much as he could have, and froze when he spotted Arthur sitting in the nearest seat across from him./p  
p align="left""Nash, calm the fuck down."/p  
p align="left"The man nearly choked, then swallowed down whatever he first thought of saying to Arthur./p  
p align="left""I've woken you up. I told you before that I'm accepting the job. My team is accepting the job. I need to know what you know. About the project, about what you did for your former employer, and everything about Michelle."/p  
p align="left"The sound of her name was enough to make Nash nod quickly./p  
p align="left""Yes, everything!" Then he launched into it. "She was named for the Beatles song and doesn't know French! Her favorite color is saffron and she loves tulips. When we go out she turns heads and doesn't care because she came with emme/em! Do you get how special that is? She could have anyone. She could have anyone, anywhere, but she chose emme/em! Her forgery is excellent- I see you over there, Eames! I know you're the best forger, but Michelle, she was special. Sometimes her forgeries had a softer touch to them, sometimes she had to play it real delicate to get the mark to believe she was who she was playing. This stupid job was a joke! She studied and studied what they wanted her to mimic, but how was she supposed to know that she'd get sucked into this Vord Queen personality? I should have known something was wrong, but they kept us separated sometimes. I'd have to work on the architecture of Alera and she'd be busy with hordes of mutant bugs, caverns and other places to hide the brood."/p  
p align="left"Arthur looked over at Eames, who very shallowly nodded his head, keeping watch over them both as they sat alone in the back of the van, the other's having left so that Nash wouldn't spot Saito and freak out just yet./p  
p align="left""You're telling me the truth," Arthur said to Nash. "Keep telling me the truth and we'll be fine. Keep telling me the truth and I'll get Michelle back for you."/p  
p align="left"Nash stared at Arthur, then at Eames, looking from one man to the other in wonder. "You- you mean it? You're really going to do that for me?"/p  
p align="left""We'll do it for you, for Michelle, and whoever the hell has been caught in this web of odd, horrifying dreamshare plotting and idiocy."/p  
hr /  
p align="left"Nash looked between Arthur and Eames. His gaze slid over Saito, who watched the man like he'd look at something small and insignificant from behind a magnifying glass. Finally he settled on Ariadne./p  
p align="left""You," Nash began to say, sizing her up. "You're one of them, aren't you?"/p  
p align="left"If her feet were touching the ground, Ariadne would have happily displayed her fury borne strength and crushed something in her fist- maybe something heavy or electronic. She could use Nash's cell phone!/p  
p align="left"But since she couldn't, she shrugged. "Saying stuff like that could get you punched in the eye."/p  
p align="left""I didn't mean anything bad by it! Just, you're one of them!"/p  
p align="left""What makes you think that, Mr. Nash?" Saito asked smoothly./p  
p align="left"Before Nash could swallow his own tongue in an attempt to emnot/em have to speak to Saito, Yusuf stepped into the conversation. "I don't know. Sometimes a person can wake naturally after a crafter puts them to sleep, it's possible he became aware and then drifted off."/p  
p align="left"Nash gave him a look, then looked at Ariadne. "It was a less than a minute and I thought I was dreaming, but I now I know. I remember you carrying me to the car- I was only awake for a moment and looked down at the ground. I remember the smell of your perfume!" Nash stared at Ariadne, saying, "You're freaky strong, aren't you? What I'm saying is that you're like one of the people that study was researching about! You and Arthur."/p  
p align="left"Then Nash looked at Arthur quickly and looked away. "I always knew that there was something off about you, man!"/p  
p align="left"Arthur put a restraining hand on Eames arm, wordlessly telling him to not bother./p  
p align="left""Still a card," Arthur said. "I'd suggest that you stop trying to get me or Ariadne to try and rip you apart. It would stain the leather of the seats. We don't want to upset Saito and have him not get the deposit back on his rental van."/p  
p align="left"Nash nodded quickly, getting over his need to pick out which of them might use furycraft to tear him in half./p  
p align="left""This is how it's going to work, Nash. You take us to the location and we'll take care of you. We'll take care of her. Just continue telling the truth to me and everything will be fine."/p  
p align="left"Nash nodded again./p  
p align="left"How would emhe /emknow that Arthur had caught the slightest undercurrent of his worry. That he'd noticed how Nash was already compartmentalizing; falling back into the 'me against everyone' mentality that many in dreamshare had to adopt to stay alive?/p  
p align="left""I know a way to get you in," Nash was saying. "I can bring you along to the last place I've seen them, show them that you've got furies, too. We just have to play it cool."/p  
hr /  
p align="left"Ariadne had to ask Arthur something before they officially began the trip./p  
p align="left"The hotel they had rented rooms from was not too decadent- Saito footed the bill, keeping away from Nash, who eyed him with open fear whenever they were in the same room. Group meetings were beyond tense./p  
p align="left"She knocked on Arthur and Eames's door, waiting a minute before attempting to knock again. Not having lost a single bit of the curiosity that plagued her during the inception, she noticed that she could emhear /emthem in there./p  
p align="left"Ariadne wasn't going to try the door handle, she wasn't going to open it. She leaned against the wall, close to the door and listened./p  
p align="left""There," Eames was saying softly, "much better. Right, darling?"/p  
p align="left"Arthur's reply was either not verbal, or too soft for Ariadne to hear. They had to know she was out there; she had knocked fairly loudly. They were probably busy getting ready- Eames most likely had drawn Arthur into some sort of a loving moment, maybe. They were so good at that./p  
p align="left"From what she had seen of their relationship, it hadn't been easy to get to that point. They had a turbulent relationship to start with, then the years of pining and hurt feelings. They probably made it a point to enjoy every opportunity together, however mundane./p  
p align="left"Ariadne could imagine Eames doing something for Arthur like helping him put on his tie; maybe adjusting the buttons of the shirt, sliding his hands down any real or imagined wrinkles in Arthur's pristine suit jacket. And Arthur, he'd probably speak softly in response, watching Eames's work as he stood in front of a mirror./p  
p align="left"She was about to knock again when she heard movement closer to the door./p  
p align="left"It opened revealing Eames with Arthur close behind, the point man adjusting his jacket, running one hand down his right arm./p  
p align="left"They both stared at her for a moment- the look of surprise quickly morphed into smooth, pleasant blankness. Polite, but caged, as if they weren't sure what she's caught from their conversation./p  
p align="left""Hi," Ariadne said, nodding to Eames but speaking directly to Arthur, "I wanted to catch you before we had to move out."/p  
p align="left""Yes, I'll leave you to it," Eames said as he walked through the door, leaving Arthur with Ariadne. "I'll meet you at the car, darling."/p  
p align="left"Arthur paused in the doorway still, watching Eames walk down the hall without looking back. Then, as if he'd just remembered something, Arthur nodded to himself and walked through the hotel room door, only carrying his PASIV and the bag he used for clothing and other such travel items./p  
p align="left""What did you want to talk about?"/p  
hr /  
p align="left"They arrived at the undisclosed location. The area, while not uninhabitable, wasn't necessarily comfortable. From Arthur's research, the land was owned by the government, but publicly and legally recognized as a protected site. He had to admire the level of detail that had been placed into the lie./p  
p align="left""I will pay you one dollar for every Spotted Green Swallowtail you find," Arthur said softly to Ariadne as they prepared to make the landing. Saito had given them the use of his helicopter for this job./p  
p align="left"The man flying it was one of Saito's. In the surrounding hills, covered in the only vegetation that grew in the area, Eames and Yusuf, not so far that they couldn't make it to the location Arthur, Ariadne, and Nash were to be dropped at. Saito was riding with the support staff, those ready to fight if they had to, to rescue if need be that were spread out and hiding./p  
p align="left"Arthur's question startled a laugh out of Ariadne, which had been his purpose./p  
p align="left""You'll pay me in Monopoly Money, right?"/p  
p align="left"Arthur raised one hand in a solemn gesture, pledging his honesty. "Really, no lying. I'll give you a dollar for each one you find."/p  
p align="left""But how would I even prove that to you? I can't catch the birds and bring them to you."/p  
p align="left""Now you're not thinking big enough," Arthur shrugged a little. "I'm sure that you could find a way to do it."/p  
p align="left"Nash was nervously bouncing one leg, looking at the helicopter landing pad down below. They were already making their descent./p  
p align="left""There are no Spotted Green Swallowtails," Nash said, maybe in a bid to join the conversation or to sound smart. "They lie about it to secure the area and protect it from developers. They keep everyone away because they don't want them to see what they've done."/p  
p align="left""It's not obvious from above," Arthur said, also not pointing out that he already knew what Nash was talking about with an edge of self-importance or nerves. It was probably nerves./p  
p align="left""Underground," Nash said. "Some of its underground."/p  
p align="left"Next to the landing area for the helicopter was a small, nondescript building that wasn't higher than one story. The only thing that distinguished it as anything important, was another bit of cover. It was designed to look like an outpost of a preservation site or post. An office that had flyers and pamphlets about the Spotted Green Swallowtail./p  
p align="left"They landed, the spinning blades kicking up dust and dirt. Waiting for the blades to stop, they finally got out of their seats, removing any securing belts. Then, when they moved away from it, the helicopter took off again, leaving them in front of the building both Nash and Saito had separately confirmed was the right place./p  
p align="left"Dressed as he would normally be for anything professionally related to dreamshare, Arthur had suited up. Ariadne was causal but presentable. Nash was Nash./p  
p align="left"Still nervous, Nash licked his lips and said. "I'm sorry."/p  
p align="left"Arthur, having expected and planned for it, said "No, you're not."/p  
p align="left"It happened just as Arthur expected it to./p  
p align="left"Ariadne was a little surprised at what happened next./p  
p align="left"Maybe the people inside the building had waited for the sounds of the helicopter leaving. Maybe they waited for Nash to specifically say that he was sorry, like it was a sign. Either way, it didn't take long for armed men to burst from the door of the innocuous building./p  
p align="left"It took nothing for them to be led at gunpoint into the room. /p  
hr /  
p align="left"Arthur was led in first, so Ariadne didn't see it./p  
p align="left"She only heard Arthur's protest./p  
p align="left"Pulling strength from the poured cement ground, Arthur threw one of the men holding a gun on him into a second, clearing the way so he could try and backtrack. He made it to Ariadne's side, grabbed her by the elbow and tried to urge her to follow him out. She saw his wide, frightened eyes and against her better judgment looked at what Arthur was trying to run from. She saw what was waiting on a desk for them./p  
p align="left"A bright and shining discipline collar was sitting on the desk. Ariadne gasped and tried to follow Arthur outside, but the way was being blocked by the other armed guards. Nash had pushed himself into the furthest corner, as far from them as possible, looking sick./p  
p align="left""I said I'm sorry," he was begging, watching as Arthur was ripped from Ariadne's side, no matter how she tried to hold onto him and keep him close./p  
p align="left"Though they had known that Nash would sell them out, though they had purposely broke the team up so there were others outside to offer back up, seeing what was waiting for at least one of them made Ariadne's stomach turn./p  
p align="left"After everything she'd seen of Saito's collaring, the fear and revulsion both Arthur and Eames expressed upon truthfinding Saito./p  
p align="left""Get him," Nash was saying, still looking sick. Still looking sweaty and awful but his eyes shimmered with the faintest hope. "He's the stronger crafter. She's just earth. He's got a lot. Air and water!" Nash directed men that weren't necessarily listening to him. "I've done what I promised. I told you we'd be coming, that I'd have crafters with me! The others are around, I don't know where! Just please let me see Michelle. You promised me I could see her after!"/p  
p align="left"One of the guards that hadn't been knocked out by Arthur took the time to reach Nash and shut him up, taking the butt of his gun and slamming it against Nash's skull./p  
p align="left"He dropped like a rock and didn't distract anyone anymore./p  
p align="left""No!" Arthur was saying, still fighting against the men now bodily lifting him so his feet were off the ground, breaking his connection with the ground and his fury. Arthur narrowed his eyes and looked at the one nearest to him, focusing and calling another fury./p  
p align="left"Through the open door was the sky and open air. Arthur called out to Spot, directing the fury to suffocate the man holding him./p  
p align="left"Despite this hiccup in their plan, one man came for her, pressing the cold gunmetal against her skull and bringing her within Arthur's view./p  
p align="left"Arthur had been focusing on the man he was smothering, watching as the other man's face turned red, how he had to let go of Arthur to clutch at his own throat, clawing there as if it would somehow make him get even the shallowest breath of air. He was already beginning to turn blue when Arthur finally spotted Ariadne./p  
p align="left""Don't hurt her," he growled. "Don't you emdare./em"/p  
p align="left""Stop your fury," one ordered him, cool and calm as his fellow began to pass out, eyes fluttering, as he finally collapsed to the ground at Arthur's feet./p  
p align="left"When it was done, they kicked their fallen man out of the way, and those who weren't trying to carry Arthur away, turned their weapons on Ariadne./p  
p align="left"Seeing no way out without getting them killed, Arthur met Ariadne's eyes. "I'm sorry, Ariadne. This…this isn't going to be pretty." He went slack in his captors' grip. "Spare her the sight of it. She doesn't need to see this."/p  
p align="left""You don't get to make that decision," one said shortly. "We'll do it right now."/p  
p align="left"The crafter came forwards, grabbing the collar from the table and directing the men holding Arthur to force him into the nearby chair. Arthur's jacket was forcibly stripped from his body; the men tugged so hard that the seams split on a sleeve./p  
p align="left""Cost me a couple hundred dollars," Arthur hissed as the ruined jacket was thrown to the floor./p  
p align="left""You're not going to care about your clothes when we put the collar on you. You'll be so sweet and quiet. You won't say boo to a ghost!"/p  
p align="left""Outdated references don't change the fact that you'll owe me a jacket," Arthur replied, looking more stressed as the man worked on his tie next, stripping it off and examining it thoughtfully./p  
p align="left""Nice pattern. Silk?"/p  
p align="left""Yes, but please don't stain it. It's my favorite tie."/p  
p align="left""Did your kid get it for you or something?" asked the same man, conversational as he stuffed the tie into his pocket, working on the buttons to Arthur's shirt collar next. Arthur's breath was coming in pants, he was afraid./p  
p align="left"Ariadne forced herself to watch, cringing as she took in Arthur's expression. It was wrong to do this to him. Arthur was powerful and dangerous and so competent that watching him be reduced to this level of fear was heart rending./p  
p align="left""My- my partner did. The tie was a present; he really liked the pattern."/p  
p align="left""Now," said the man working on unbuttoning Arthur's collar, exposing the point man's neck. "Where is your partner? Where is Eames?"/p  
p align="left"If Arthur was surprised that they knew Eames was around, or at least had a feeling that he was close, he didn't show it. It was besides the point- they are a team, Arthur and Eames, known throughout dreamshare as a two man team. It was unusual to see one without the other. But Arthur said nothing in response to that question. He wasn't going to give Eames up willingly./p  
p align="left"The man was finished with Arthur's shirt collar and reached to his belt where he'd attached the sheath of a knife, slipping it free from his belt and neatly slicing at the pad of his own thumb. With the help of two other men, he forced the collar around Arthur's neck. The slim metal collar immediately clicked closed around his throat, and Arthur couldn't stop his involuntary movements; trying to wrench his arms free from his captors so he could rip the collar off of his neck, break the damnable thing so it couldn't be used on him or Ariadne./p  
p align="left"But Arthur failed./p  
p align="left"His captor had just coated the back of the collar with his own blood from his cut thumb, and then, with the help of the other men, wrestled one of Arthur's arms up into a position so his hand could reach the back of the collar as well- thumb sliced and bleeding freely, it took hardly anything for the blood to be mixed with his captor, his master./p  
p align="left"The change in Arthur's temperament was almost immediate. Ariadne closed her eyes but couldn't stop herself from hearing Arthur; the sounds ripped from Arthur when the collar gave him pain for fighting against his new master and then rewarding him with pleasure when he finally began to submit./p  
p align="left"When he was more or less silent, panting and making inarticulate sounds, Ariadne opened her eyes and watched as the man who collared Arthur began to pet the point man, leaving his shirt collar undone to display the metal band around his neck./p  
p align="left""Stop touching him," Ariadne hissed, feeling ineffectual and sick. "Just leave him alone! You've gotten him where you want him- he's not a threat to you, he can't hurt you! Leave him some pride, damn it!"/p  
p align="left"The man who had managed to collar Arthur smiled at her, "You're so luck we only had the one available. But I'm sure we can find another soon. Just wait. You'll experience it, too. Tell her, Arthur. Tell her it's not so bad."/p  
p align="left"Arthur's eyes were closed; he flinched and shivered against the demands of the collar and the way the man was soothingly running his hand down Arthur's chest, reaching out to stroke his face. Arthur leaned into the touch against his cheek, much like a sleepily affectionate cat./p  
p align="left""Ari," Arthur said, like his words were being dragged out of him, like he was drugged. "I forgot how it is. I forgot what it feels like. It's…not good..."/p  
p align="left"Then Arthur winced, his eyes opening wide, nearly all pupil till his eyes rolled back in his head and he succumbed to the collar again. "It's good," he amended. "When- when we get out, Ari, when we get out, I'm going to kill them all-"/p  
p align="left"He was hit with another chastening wave of pain that made his back bow and fists clench hard enough for his nails to bite into his palms./p  
p align="left""He'll be pretty useless while he's acclimating to the collar," the man who collared Arthur said to both her and to his team. "The collar will stop him from making any moves against us, but it will be best to secure him and his little friend. Move them to the holding area."/p  
p align="left"Then he looked at Arthur and said in a commanding voice, "Obey their orders, Arthur. Go quietly or I'll kill your friend."/p  
p align="left"Arthur sleepily nodded his agreement, going lax when the men began to drag him out of the chair and move him as they wished. They began to carry Arthur's dead weight to the back and down a slope- not stairs, just dirt./p  
p align="left""We'll keep you safe and comfortable," the man was saying as he led them down./p 


	7. Chapter 7

A.N: Oh, look there's more. Fixing errors as I go.

Eames cringed to himself, feeling useless as he waited to hear from Arthur or Ariadne

Saito spoke to one of his men who communicated via walkie-talkie to another team. He nodded and related the information to Eames.

"They've been taken, Mr. Eames. Should we move in now, or wait for the sign?"

"Give it a little time," the forger advised. "We still don't know what's going to happen to them. All we really know is that Nash did as we expected him to. Now that he's inside, Arthur is going to try and find Michelle."

"Even after what Nash did?" Yusuf said as he worked carefully, using his woodcrafting to make a weapon that could take the place of his gun, if he needed it. He had collected several of the thickest boughs from the trees that surrounded them, stripped them of their leaves, and smoothed the bark. He then fused them together, using his woodcrafting to create a thick stave. If he'd had healthier trees he might have made a serviceable club.

This would do, though. He tested the thing's heft and was satisfied at the swishing noise it made as he swung it through the air. It was decent. But now he had nothing to distract him from the fact that his girlfriend had been taken along with Arthur into an unknown situation. He grit his teeth and looked in the direction the compound was located. They'd set up squads and teams of people in each area; they'd been advised to begin to converge on the site once Eames had given the word.

Eames was looking in the direction of the compound as well, waiting with none of Yusuf's nervous energy. He was patient, and there was something about the way he waited that made Yusuf think that he was missing something.

"Do you think they're okay?"

Eames said nothing for a moment. "I don't know yet. I'm waiting for Arthur to try and make contact. You know this already, Yusuf. We talked about the plan, the contingency plan, and then the contingency plan for the contingency plan. Arthur will do as much as he can with what he can find there. If he can find Michelle, he'll try to rescue her. If he can find any hard evidence or research about the Vord dreams, he'll steal it for us all. And if he can try to destroy the place as a last resort, he'd attempt it if he and Ariadne can get out safely."

Yusuf didn't say anything in response just yet, waiting for his nerves to calm down and cursing himself when it failed.

"Am I a bad boyfriend?" Yusuf asked.

"This isn't the time for relationship conversations, Yusuf."

"It's just that I get this feeling that I'm doing this wrong."

Eames stopped looking in the distance and gave Yusuf a very direct look. "I overheard a similar conversation between Arthur and Ariadne. If we stop distracting each other, there's an excellent chance that we'll still get to see them when this is over. We could go to dinner and talk about positive and negative aspects of our relationships, give each other critiques and advice because we're all adults. But that would be for later, when I'm not ready to jump out of my skin and run to Arthur. Can it wait? Can whatever issue you think you're having please be put on the backburner, because this is a very delicate part of the mission?"

Yusuf swallowed hard and looked down at the stave he'd made, struggling with feelings that he wanted to put aside for the sake of the mission.

Eames no doubt sensed it with his watercrafting, sighed and looked at Yusuf seriously.

"You feel as abrasive as sandpaper right now. On an emotional level, you're like the little alarm that's meant to remind me to change the battery in my smoke alarm; that beeping sound that won't quit until I shut the car door. If we're going to focus on the job, we need to get this out of the way now. Start talking, but make it quick."

"I'm not good enough."

"Try again."

"Ariadne…she doesn't expect anything out of me but _does_ at the same time!"

"That doesn't make any sense. Rephrase and try again. I want something valid."

Yusuf huffed out a frustrated breath and tried again. "I don't think I'm a good enough boyfriend. I could be better, I'm not meeting the standard, I'm lousy and practically a criminal and I don't know what she sees in me!"

"Once again, these are things that would be better talked about with your girlfriend. Have you bothered to speak to her? Have you even tried?"

Yusuf muttered a little, Eames rolled his eyes and shook his head. "You're not going to fix the problem if you don't address it with the one you love. You love Ariadne, yes? It's not just an earthcrafting romance? She doesn't regularly earthcraft your brains out?"

Yusuf blushed and looked away briefly. "Our sex lives are exciting and inventive. We make each other laugh. She visits me in Mombasa and I go to Paris. What we have is fun. But I almost always have a sinking feeling that I could be doing or being _more_."

"She must like you; she took a chance on you after the inception. She gave you the chance to apologize and eventually you started a relationship. It's been a year and you're still together. I would greatly appreciate it if you had faith in your relationship and didn't bring it up when we're busy."

"But how do you do it? You and Arthur are amazing as a couple. You're both kind and committed, patient and caring. You support each other so well, it's like you've been doing it for years and years."

Eames sighed. "It isn't a secret. Our way isn't your way. We went through hell, we hurt each other. You remember how I was before, Yusuf! I was lonely and miserable and I pined! But Arthur, he had it worse. I left him without any explanation, I never spoke to him again after what happened, and it was only Cobb's insistence that I be hired for the Fischer job that brought us together again. It was ridiculous! You don't want our relationship, Yusuf. You should want your own."

Yusuf could have said something about how he _did_ want his own relationship. He didn't want to hurt Ariadne's feelings or be separated from her like they were right now. Never for as long as Arthur and Eames had been separated. He liked seeing her around his dream den, for all it bothered him that she didn't appear so bothered by the fact that he _had_ a dream den. Yes, dreamshare made people develop questionable morals and he had a confusing image of the Ariadne from before she started dreamshare and the Ariadne of now and felt he was at fault for some of it. Granted, she'd probably punch him for even suggesting that he was even vaguely responsible for damaging Ariadne's morals.

His shoulder's sagged. He couldn't even win an agreement against himself; how was he going to make his relationship balance out, how could he both live up to the proper idea of what a good boyfriend is while not crushing what he had like an idiot?

From the way Eames was staring at him, it was clear that the watercrafter was catching some of the emotions that flitted around the chemist's mind.

"I love Arthur," Eames said. "I just do. I'm bananas for him. I'm just as nervous as you are waiting for them to come back, okay? I have the benefit of metalcrafting to ward away the emotions, the anxiety this situation is causing right now. I want him to come back to me in one piece. I want to take him away from here, and together, we'll figure out how this is happening. Because he's the best. We're the best together. If you don't get your shit together, Yusuf, I'm going to have to disprove each and every negative claim you've got about your relationship. I'll truthfind you if I have to. So stop thinking that the worst thing has happened. Even if it has, we have to have faith that they'll still get back here."

Eames turned away from Yusuf and looked back towards where the compound was, saying to himself, "Come on, darling. You can do it."

* * *

Ariadne was weakly sobbing. She didn't cry often, or even when she was stressed. She kept her head in difficult situations. But there was something about being placed in the cage that pulled the tears from her. She apparently had a hidden reserve of fear that manifested as weak sobs as she gripped the cold metal bars of her cage and tried to, against reason and rational thought, pull them apart like she could have if they hadn't suspended the cage in the air with a winch specially left in their holding cell. It kept the cage several feet above the ground, breaking her connection with A'tuin, robbing her of the strength she'd spent most of her young adult life hiding from others, reveling in the power in secret.

As an earthcrafter with a powerful earth fury, she'd been a force to reckon with. She could protect herself. But now she couldn't. Worse, she couldn't even protect Arthur.

Poor Arthur.

The thought of him made her try to stop her tears. She wasn't so high up, maybe four or five feet; if she could break the bars she'd have the option of jumping. But even if she was left to hang two or three feet in the air the minimum height required to stop her earthcrafting also drove the point home that her escape was so very close, but nothing she could manage without A'tuin!

She'd been hoisted up in the cage and left hanging there while they had prepared Arthur.

He'd- he'd been so docile as they pushed and shoved him this way and that. They dug the hole in the thick-packed ground, shoveling up dry smelling, metallic tinged earth that Ariadne wanted to run through her fingers like water. They made him stand in the hole and patiently wait for them to fill it up till he was buried to his neck, peaceful and quiet. Drowsy, one had commented before dumping some loose dirt on Arthur's head, making the point man start coughing and choking; the dirt had gotten into his eyes, into his mouth, but he hadn't complained.

And even from her height, she could feel the rising heat from the burning coals the men had ringed around Arthur.

"Arthur?" She whispered to him as she knelt in her cage and squeezed the bars. She could see him; buried to his neck in the dirt, ringed by hot coals set in a circle with a diameter of two maybe three feet so Arthur wasn't in danger of being burned, but they'd bound him all the same.

With dirt, and the collar, and the coals. Arthur, the more dangerous of the two of them, the one with the most furies, had been neutralized.

She began to ineffectually shake the bars, calling to Arthur. "Hey! Arthur- please, Arthur! Please answer me!"

"Hmmn," Arthur moved his head slightly. He wasn't facing her, so she couldn't see his expression, but he sounded tired. Or drugged. "Ari," Arthur answered, his words so slow. "Ariadne, it's okay."

Ariadne squeezed the bars tighter, and shook them with her furyless strength. "Don't lie to me, Arthur. This is bad. This is as far from okay as we can possibly get."

"No, no." Arthur was saying, speaking softly and slurring a little. "No, it'll be okay. I promise."

Ariadne looked at the back of Arthur's head, how he had now bowed his head and gone quiet again. _Did he even know what was happening?_ she thought.

He'd been ordered to obey the men who put them in holding, to obey the man who collared him. Would he even be capable of escaping without her? She ducked her head and fought against a fresh wave of tears. Would _she_ be capable of leaving, period?

"It's okay," Arthur was saying to her. "It's okay. I'll get you out. I'll get me out. I'll kill them all, Ariadne. If Eames doesn't do it first. I'd probably like to see that."

Arthur shivered, one of pleasure that he either couldn't fight or didn't care to. The sight of it made her pause.

She looked around the cavern they'd been locked in. Though they weren't very deep underground, the earthcrafting used to partition the space had been extensive with tunneling, reinforced with stone and fired clay. Tunnels were like halls, the rooms like sections of honeycomb. Several chambers had been built with earthcrafting and the walls that separated each chamber was made of fired, sturdy clay. The walled off face of their holding area was the same, with the exception of a doorframe having been crafted in place, a door that could swing open and closed on crude hinges. There most likely was a lock, it was most likely locked now. She hadn't seen the other chambers as they dragged them to this one, but it stood to reason that it was standard to build this way while underground.

They had to have more crafters than the one that collared Arthur.

"Arthur, how are you going to get out? They've dried you out so you can't watercraft- they've done so much to stop you."

"I don't need to watercraft now. I already know what they feel- it was so dirty, Ariadne. They're so power hungry," Arthur sighed. "I caught the thought from one that they'd wait till my master wasn't looking and force me to-"

"Stop talking about it, Arthur. Please, don't say it."

Arthur listened to her, going silent. Then he said, "They're stupid, Ariadne. They don't know the truth. They thought collaring me would do them a favor. But it means nothing, nothing at all."

Ariadne watched Arthur; trapped and bound and enslaved, Arthur began to chuckle quietly.

"They thought that the collar would be enough to stop me doing any crafting. Ring me in coals to dry me up and stop my watercrafting. Cover me in dirt to stop me from calling Spot and flying away. Collar me to obey." Arthur laughed again, softly saying, "They needed the dirt to counteract my strongest crafting, even though they obviously knew I could earthcraft, too. They took a risk when they thought that collaring me would be enough to stop me from going against them." Arthur sighed.

"But they didn't specifically say _Don't try to craft your way out of the ground, Arthur._ They didn't even say anything before they left..."

Arthur couldn't turn his head with how deep, how tightly he was buried.

"Watch the ground, Ariadne," Arthur called up to her. "If they've set an earth fury to watch the ground to see if I've moved, I'll need a chance to arm myself and kill them."

Ariadne nodded quickly then remembered that Arthur couldn't see her. "I'll watch," she said. "What are you going to arm yourself with?"

Arthur hummed, already calling on his earth fury and loosening the dirt that was packed around his body. The only movement Ariadne could see in the dirt was localized to Arthur's body and not further than the ring of coals.

"Got a knife," Arthur was saying as he began to emerge from the dirt that shifted and parted for him like water as he used his earth fury to loosen the stuff and climb out of the hole. "Got the sheath bound to my ankle. The idiots didn't think to make me take my clothes off or to remove my shoes. They wanted to mess me up."

Arthur his balance upon standing up straight a little wobbly, but good enough. His shirt collar was still unbuttoned, revealing the gleaming metal collar the man put on him, the sight of it made Ariadne feel sick. There was a noise at the door, the sound of a key entering a lock and turning.

Before she could yell to Arthur, the door to their holding cell slammed open and the man who collared Arthur entered the room. His eyes boggled when he took in the sight of Arthur free from the ground.

" _Stand Down_ ," the man called to Arthur, infusing his voice with power and intent, attempting to control Arthur through the bond they shared through the collar.

Arthur slowly turned to look at the man who collared him, taking one step towards the man.

"Your name is Randy, isn't it?" Arthur said, conversational and at ease as he began to brush the dirt from the front of his shirt, kneeling to pull the knife from the sheath bound to his ankle.

The man froze and extended his hand, his palm open, before he attempted to command Arthur again. When he noticed Arthur not budging and _now armed_ , he narrowed his eyes and squeezed his hand into a fist, focusing and expecting something to happen. It didn't.

"Well, Randy, I want you to know that I don't lie. I keep my promises. And now I'm going to kill you, mother fucker. This is for anyone you collared in the past." Arthur smiled a wicked smile. "This is for my jacket, too; it was a present, you tool."

Randy watched, his mouth falling open.

"Why aren't you obeying? Are you deaf? Did you damage your hearing or something?!"

Arthur shook his head, smiling as he grasped the collar with one hand, getting a good grip and calling on his earth fury for strength. He ripped the collar from his neck and tossed the broken pieces to the ground. Then he stretched.

"That's much, much better," Arthur said, touching the now bare skin of his neck. "Now I'm going to kill you."

Arthur rushed forwards with his knife, racing forwards and calling on his earth fury to lend more strength to his attacks.

Ariadne watched, amazed at Arthur's breaking the collar. She stared from her unwilling perch, still trapped in the cage, and shook the bars. How had he done it? How in the hell had he done it?

Arthur stabbed at Randy, who had finally managed to dodge out of the way and pull his assault rifle, ready to aim and shoot.

"Aw, poor baby needs his gun?" Arthur was saying to him, calling out to his earth fury and gesturing to the dirt. It rose like a wave, moving swiftly in Randy's direction, forcing the man to dodge rather than shoot. "You started this with furycraft, so let's end it with furycraft!"

Managing to get out of the way of the dirt and rocks the spilled towards him at Arthur's command, Randy stumbled and had just enough time to catch the blade of Arthur's knife against the stock of his gun, forcing the swiftly advancing point man a step or two away as he was forced to use the gun as a melee weapon. Randy swung the heavy rifle at Arthur's head, putting his weight behind it, maybe calling on his own fury to add strength to the blow! The first swing went wide and Arthur dodged, calling to Randy, "That's a swing and a miss!"

"Shut up!" Randy growling, trying again.

Arthur reversed his hold on the knife, and called on strength from the earth. Arthur took that power and placed it all into one punch, an uppercut that landed squarely on Randy's jaw. There was an audible cracking sound. Randy dropped his weapon, fell backwards in the dirt and didn't move.

Arthur didn't need his water fury to tell him that he'd broken Randy's neck, killing him instantly.

Breathing hard, Arthur looked up at Ariadne, still watching him wide eyed in her cage, and called up to her, "I'm coming up. Give me a second!"

"Please hurry, Arthur," Ariadne began to beg, silently jealous of Arthur being on the ground. She wanted her feet to touch the floor, she wanted to call her fury and punch her way through the walls.

Arthur looked down at his clothes and began brushing the dirt off, calling on his earth fury to try and slough off the excess. Arthur began to unbutton his shirt, smirking up at her as her eyes widened.

"Dear Penthouse Forum," Arthur said as he unbuttoned the torn and filthy shirt, "I couldn't believe it when my coworker Tom, whom I had happened to share one kiss that completely blew my mind, began to strip-"

"Really?" Ariadne couldn't help but ask. She was thrown, distracted, and not worrying about capture and speedily exiting the cage. "Your pornographic exploit name is going to be _Tom_?"

Arthur shrugged. "Tom is a sexy name." He jumped and called to his air fury, saying, "Up!"

A weak column of air collected beneath Arthur's feet and slowly bore him upwards till he was level with Ariadne's cage. Ariadne was still kneeling inside the cage, biting her lip.

Arthur focused on the blade, using his metal crafting to made it diamond sharp.

He cut several of the bars away, dropping them to the floor where they made dull thumps upon reaching the ground.

Ariadne reached out to Arthur, who looped one arm around her waist and pulled her from the cage as it swung on it's chain. She heaved a grateful sob and hugged Arthur hard as they reached the ground.

"It's okay, Ariadne. You did well."

She allowed herself to hug him tightly and feel secure on the ground. She called on A'tuin, feeling the restored connection, her fury's worry and love flooding their bond and made Ariadne say to herself, to the earth fury, and to Arthur: "Yeah, we're okay, now. It's okay!"

When she pulled away from Arthur, wanting to give him some personal space, wanting to restore some of her dignity, she noticed what she'd been too absorbed in thoughts of escape to spot as Arthur began to cut the bars from her cage.

On Arthur's right arm was a thin metal band. It cut into the point man's bicep; tight but not crushing, nothing that would cut off his circulation, nothing that would have ruined the line of his suit or shirt while he'd been wearing it. It was a second discipline collar.

She sniffed and looked at Arthur. "You- you had Eames collar you before we left?"

He nodded, moving the arm that bore the collar. She noticed that he didn't touch it.

"We weren't sure if the people who operated this facility would also be using the discipline collar to try and control fury crafters. It was one of the only ways we could conceive their being controlled."

Ariadne looked at Arthur's discipline collar, frowning. "And because you were wearing this one, the one they put on you wouldn't work."

Arthur nodded again. "You can't have two masters. This wouldn't have worked if the other collar was changed." He cringed. "Improved, you could say. We took a risk, but when we asked Saito to find us one, he did it."

He then let Ariadne go and called on his own earth fury to hide Randy's body. He forced the earth to swallow Randy's corpse up, making the body sink into the earth with hardly a ripple.

Ariadne followed after Arthur, unable to take her eyes off of the collar.

"How do you _feel?"_

Arthur looked over his shoulder at her and sighed. "It's strange. We went over a very specific series of rules and responses. I can talk to you because you're on my team. I had an entire set of instructions that centered on you inscribed into the collar by Eames."

"Really?"

"I couldn't leave you behind. I had to make sure that they would collar me, not you. The main directive was to ensure that you get back to our base in one piece. If you were in any danger, I was to drop the façade immediately and take you back."

Arthur took a deep breath and tried to focus.

"It's not as potent when I'm separated from him, but there's a kind of relay. He knows I'm here, doing as he said, and it makes me feel wonderful. I can't wait for the collar to come off, because too much of it is going to leave a mark. A kind of reward system that will drive me only to do what I think will please him. We don't want that. It's not healthy. But I'll obey for now."

Arthur shivered, either in response to the chill air or the collar rewarding him for getting back with the system. He'd stuffed something into his pocket, the very edge of something sticking out. At some point, he'd stolen his tie back from Randy.

"You got the tie?"

Arthur smiled and nodded. "It was a gift from Eames; it has a clever pattern."


	8. Chapter 8

A.N: Carefully adding more. And a Vord Queen.

They got out of the cavern easily enough, but then had to try and find what they came for. Information about the project and Michelle.

The tunnels were lit by the occasional hanging lamp strung from the tunnel ceiling, making them brighter than Arthur would have thought. He kept Ariadne close, the collar humming softly and rewarding him for his care. Arthur grit his teeth against the pleasure the collar offered; he'd have to tell Eames to be careful how to phrase these sorts of things in the future. That they were really like wish master rules. And then he had to remind himself they wouldn't do this again. Eames had promised.

Arthur hadn't been lying to Ariadne when Randy had ordered him to tell her what it felt like. In the past, in the beginning of Project PASIV, he had witnessed others being collared. He'd felt and unintentionally shared their pleasure, their pain. He was too new at water crafting- it rattled him, so when he and Eames developed their sign system to warn each other of the collaring, he confessed to Eames what he'd seen, what he'd felt.

They had taken a risk doing this, but it felt like it was the only option they had. It had been a big if, but it turned out to be true. Arthur was only thankful that the bastards had only had the one collar on them- if they collared Ariadne, Arthur wasn't sure he'd be able to take it.

He could imagine having to rip them all apart. When he'd seen the collar, he'd done everything in his power to take her and _run_ , his collar singing against his arm, urging him to continue and run away with her. But they'd caught him.

The hardest part had been playing the role of an addled collared one, his own collar rewarding him each time he fooled them, his own collar chastening him when he slipped up and let his anger show. Threatening to kill them hadn't been a good idea.

As they walked, preparing for run-ins with the guards, they noticed how unnaturally quiet it was. They hadn't run into anyone else after they'd disposed of Randy.

And then they walked past a barred door.

Behind it, Arthur could hear the sounds of soft sobbing."Wait," Arthur said softly. Ariadne stopped at his side, watching as he approached the door cautiously.

He examined the door. Pressing the flat of his hand to it, eyes closed, Arthur waited and listened to something that Ariadne couldn't hear, something that she wasn't aware of. With her earthcrafting restored, she called to A'tuin and asked her fury to search the room, to tell her if the one they could hear was alone in the cell.

No doubt sensing her fury's tentative search, Arthur tensed and whispered to Ariadne. "Call your fury back, I think we found her."

He waved her back, gesturing that she should get behind him. "Keep an eye, I doubt that Randy was the only crafter here. Let's find out who's behind the door."

The bolt that was across the door was heavy, something that looked like it could hold up to an attack from a skilled earthcrafter.

But instead of knocking it down, Arthur carefully called on his earth fury and pulled the bolt from its locked position across the doorway, shoving it back with what should have been a reverberating _clank_ , but with his metalcraft he forced some of his will into the bar of metal, strengthening it, stabilizing it so it moved with a whisper.

Once Arthur managed it, he slumped against the doorway, boneless. Ariadne moved to his side and touched his arm.

"Are you alright?" She asked, worried but still paying attention to her surroundings. Hearing no one, sensing no one else with her earth fury, she examined Arthur's face, noticing how pale he was, how tired.

"I'm-," Arthur took a deep breath. "I'll be better once we get out of here. I have a horrible feeling that we've only just seen the tip of the iceberg. Let's open the door."

With Ariadne's help, Arthur managed to get the door open. It revealed a dark chamber, much like the one they'd been kept in for holding.

"Hello?" A woman's voice called, uncertain and frightened. "Please! Please I've done everything you've asked me to do, please just let me go home!"

"Come closer to the door," Arthur said, keeping his voice even and soft.

There was the sound of clinking chains as the person in the cell moved closer to the doorway.

A young women dragged a length of chain behind her, blinking as she was exposed to the meager light of the tunnel.

Michelle, named for a Beatles song, was filthy and had been chained to the wall. The chain was attached to a thick collar around her neck, and Ariadne breathed a sigh of relief when she noticed that it wasn't a discipline collar.

"I'm Arthur," the point man said. "Brad sent me to rescue you, Michelle. But before I do, I need to ask you some questions."

Michelle's eyes widened and she began to tug at her chain, her collar, eager to get closer to the point man. "He sent you? He's- he's still okay? Thank god! I haven't seen him in so long! Can I talk to him? Is he here?"

Arthur didn't answer her questions, but made a gentling motion, before pressing one finger to his lips to encourage her to be silent. "I can't talk to you about that now. I need to talk to you about what you've experienced while here- every scrap of information I've found about you and this experiment insisted that you had tricked yourself into thinking that you'd become a Vord Queen. That you had forgotten who you were."

"Arthur?" Ariadne hissed, still keeping watch. "Do you really have to ask her this now? Let's just take her and run!"

Arthur shook his head. "I was given more instructions than to save or defend you, Ariadne. I will protect her if she hasn't been compromised. I will rescue her if it's in my power."

Then he returned his attention to the wide-eyed Michelle. "Give me your hand."

She did so hesitantly, reaching out and grasping Arthur's hand so tightly that her knuckles whitened. "Do you or do you not still believe that you're a Vord Queen?"

"No. It was such a bizarre idea in the first place, but it caught and held me. I was trapped by it for such a long time. That's why Brad and the others were forced to go…"

"Do you know where the research is compiled? Where their PASIV or other devices may be?"

She shivered and said, "I do. Before I was compromised by the forgery I had access to the research, the tools. The PASIV is kept in the- the center of this place underground." She ducked her head and took a breath. "They call it the nest. The facility as a whole is called the hive."

Arthur nodded and continued questioning her. "What happened when you regained your sense of self?"

"They took me away from the nest, away from _it_."

Arthur's eyes narrowed, Ariadne watched his changing expression in regards to what the woman was saying. She couldn't follow along like a watercrafter could, and she wondered if Arthur wished that Eames was here instead of her. That way they could bounce ideas and interpretations back and forth like a game of tennis.

Arthur unexpectedly chuckled, causing both Ariande and Michelle to stare at him.

He apologized to Michelle and briefly smirked for Ariadne- an acknowledgement of her thought. He said, "You're doing fine, by the way" and added "I wasn't purposely listening in on what you're thinking about, that one was just pretty loud emotionally speaking."

He got back to the matter at hand and looked Michelle squarely in the eyes. "Can you take me there?"

Before Michelle could gesture to the chain that bound her to the wall, Arthur was shaking his head. "I can feel that you have a minimal ability to earthcraft, that you're a watercrafter. It's part of what sunk you into the alternate identity, the false mindset."

She nodded. "But it broke, finally. You can ask me anything, Arthur. Anything at all, I'll tell you the truth."

Arthur let go of her hands. "That's not necessary. Hold still, please."

Michelle did as Arthur asked, standing very still as the point man slipped his fingers beneath the thick collar Michelle had been forced to wear after she came back to herself. First, Arthur focused on the metal of the band itself, using his crafting to weaken it in two specific places to prevent Michelle being injured by shards of flying metal. Once he was certain of the flaws in the collar, he instructed Michelle to be very still. With his furycrafted strength, Arthur tore the collar from her neck, breaking it in two neat pieces that he threw into the cell, pausing as he examined the length of chain that was once attached to the collar. He snapped a length of the chain, leaving a decent amount so the severed chain could serve as an improvised weapon. Arthur offered it to Ariadne, who wrapped the chain around her non-dominant hand, remembering to not choke her thumb when she made a fist. Arthur nodded in approval and turned to Michelle, who was rubbing at her neck, fingers tracing the place the collar once sat.

"Lead me to the nest, Michelle. We'll take what we need, what we can find before we're detected. Tell me what this _it_ is."

Michelle swallowed and said, "I don't think you'll believe me…"

Arthur gave her what Ariadne thought of as his patented _I'm a point man, don't fucking play with me_ look. "You'll tell me and then I'll make that decision."

"They found one."

"Specificity," Arthur said, though the look on his face told Ariadne that this was something he suspected. Something bad.

"They found a Vord Queen…" Michelle said, suddenly more frightened as she spoke the words. "I don't know how they did it. I don't know how they even found it! They showed it to me after I'd begun to practice the forgery. They made me go under with it-," Michelle confessed.

"You mean that it's hooked up to a PASIV?" Ariadne asked.

Arthur was focusing on Michelle, then reached out and gently, so gently, tapped her brow. His words were cold and precise.

"You let it in. You let it in and it changed you. The only reason they chose you to stay was because you became what they needed, didn't you? Then you passed it on to your team before they left this place. Your team has been passing it on to everyone they've dreamed with since."

Michelle nodded tearfully. "Everything they've been able to find out about them, the Vord, there was a specific time during Aleran history when many young Vord Queens were purposefully created without the ability to make their own junior Queens. Whether this Vord Queen is a result of that or of some undocumented illness among its kind, it's not capable of making junior Queens. I was a replacement."

"It adopted you," Arthur said flatly.

Michelle said in a very small voice, "I think- I think they could tell that it was lonely."

Arthur took a deep breath, obviously sorting through the problems this was going to force to the surface of their plan. "Take me to it," Arthur said, shouldering the rifle he'd stolen from Randy.

"What are you going to do?" Michelle asked as Arthur began to march away, Michelle keeping step with him and Ariadne bringing up the rear, still keeping watch for others.

"Because of what you and your team has done," Arthur said, his words cold and blunt, "there are dreamers spreading this nightmare around. A nightmare of a Vord invested world; of being buried alive beneath the croach, eaten by Vord. I don't know how many have been taken like you, adopted by this sterile Vord Queen. I'm going to kill it before it wakes up and wrecks havoc with new soldiers, _some of which can fury craft._ "

Until he figured out how this thing was infecting the dreams of others, until he had an accurate idea of how this was happening to people, he'd have to stop himself from jumping to conclusions. He'd have to be rational.

Arthur's metal crafting was doing its job, forcing down his anger and pain and fear so he could think, and do what must be done. It didn't stop him from reaching into his pocket and touching the tie he'd stolen back from Randy.

Even with the metalcrafting in place, Arthur was unable to keep Eames from his thoughts. His poor Eames, who'd gone under with Cobb. Damned Cobb for stumbling into this when he should have stayed as far away from dreamshare as possible after the near disaster of the inception of Robert Fischer! No, no, the metalcrafting was dampening it down, forcing him to focus on the mission, the directions Michelle gave, and the collar around his arm that became heavier with each step.

* * *

"I sense two," Ariadne whispered, keeping her earthcrafting gentle and slow, her fury allowing her to sense who was inside the room that Michelle had led them to, nodding to them and trying to be quiet when Arthur had pressed one finger to his lips to caution her.

Arthur nodded, his eyes closed, one hand pressed against the wall. Ariadne pulled her fury back and watched the point man.

"Do you think one of them is the Vord?"

Arthur frowned. "I can't tell…one person, they might be sleeping. Maybe. The other is awake." Arthur opened his eyes and stared at Ariadne. "I think I can distract the one who's awake," Arthur whispered back. "Don't be surprised when I go in there, okay? And please, don't touch me when it starts."

Ariadne raised a questioning brow; Michelle's eyes widened.

Arthur didn't give them an explanation after that, because the first thing he did was lean away from the wall and move towards the door.

The point man rolled his shoulders, worked the kinks out of his neck and laid one hand against the door. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and then began earthcrafting as he pushed the door open.

The man Arthur was met with had been busy reading a report of some sort, an array of chemistry equipment before him. The man, maybe not a crafter from what Arthur could sense of him, wasn't aware of Arthur's crafting beyond the _wanting_ that blossomed in the pit of his stomach when Arthur caught and held his gaze.

From that glance and from his quick reading of the man's emotions, a mix of pleasure, confusion, and surprise tinged with curiosity, this man wasn't around for Arthur's public collaring. He may not know who Arthur is, at all. He knew what the collar on Arthur's arm was, though.

"Hello," Arthur purred, keeping his earthcrafting steady, urged on by the collar. He'd not told Ariadne about this subset. The decision that he and Eames had made in programming the collar, programming Arthur- that if he could fight, he would fight, and if it came to his having to seduce or earthcraft someone to find safety or information, he was to do it.

As he worked the earthcrafting, Arthur was taken back to that moment when Eames had done it; the collaring had been easy, Eames had been gentle, with precisely worded commands. When Arthur had unintentionally collapsed to the ground in a fit of writhing; counter commands from the collar that both rewarded his submission but punished his lack of attention to Eames, forced Eames to kneel at his side and gentle him through it, whispering the reinforcing commands as the blood dried on his thumb.

 _My Arthur, my darling Arthur. You'll come back to me. You'll bring Ariadne back safely. You'll find out the answers to our questions._

The man froze and took in the sight of Arthur- bare chested, fit, collared, whiskey eyed and silently broadcasting his pleasure, yet to be fulfilled.

"Hi," the man said, hesitant as he took in the sight of Arthur, standing up and looking to the right, at the locked enclosure, the reinforced glass walled prison, now dark. Arthur didn't track the movement of the other man. He remained framed within the doorway, waiting for the right moment to take a step forwards.

"Did someone send you here?" The man continued, unsure, but unconsciously wetting his lips with his tongue. "Did Randy send you here to tell me something?"

 _Do whatever you have to, darling. But come back to me._

Arthur smiled, the collar and his earthcrafting making the edges of his vision become narrowed on just one thing. He'd simplified it just so: the way out was to get into the young man's pants. Find the truth and knock him out.

Arthur moved closer to this man, this nameless tech. Maybe a chemist, maybe a sentinel. Arthur didn't care. He needed this to work. He needed to figure it all out.

"Where is it?" Arthur whispered, not hearing how Ariadne had moved forwards, closer to the door when Arthur moved further into the room, when she felt his crafting, she held back.

The man didn't even notice her there. He swallowed hard, not able to take the brunt of Arthur's attention, the force his crafting.

"What?"

Arthur moved close enough to touch the man, lightly running his fingers down the man's chest, smiling pleasantly while internally thinking about how he'd probably been restored enough from his time away from the smoldering coals, that he could grow his fingernails into something sharper than the usual neatly trimmed, sometimes manicured norm. But he didn't.

Arthur was still feeling a spike of something from this man. The man was confused by his attraction. If Arthur had the time, he'd probably find something in his thoughts and emotions that hinted his sexual preference. Earthcrafting often swept preference aside in favor of unleashing the primal emotions associated with sex and want. Want didn't care about gender, it cared about stimulus.

The point man grabbed a handful of the man's shirt, tightened his fist around it and proceeded to pick the man up, calling on power from the earth, dropping the sexual note to the crafting- he already had the man's attention and distracted him from the presence of the others.

The man's eyes widened as his feet no longer touched the ground.

"I won't hurt you," Arthur said, voice slow and precise. "I just want to know what the hell you've done here. And then I'll leave."

The man's breathing was becoming ragged; he clutched at Arthur's wrist, making odd little whimpers.

"I can't. _I can't._ They'll kill me, you don't understand!"

"If you continue to do what you're doing, you may die anyway." Arthur, still holding the man up, tilted his head in the direction of the reinforced glass prison, the darkened place that hid what Arthur wanted to see. On one side of the glass was the PASIV, hooked up and running, but he couldn't see where the IV lines went.

"You're keeping it prisoner, aren't you. You thought that you could learn, but all it does is dream about its future."

The man shook his head, frightened, but Arthur could sense the discomfort, the shame as the man lied to Arthur and to himself.

"Its-," the man began, "Its so powerful. I have to keep it sedated all day and all night."

"Show me your research. Give me what I want. Show me the creature."

The man sniffled and began to beg. "Please, I didn't want to do any of it! I'm- I'm sorry they collared you! Who's pulling your strings? Not Randy, is it? Do we have another break in the system? Have we been found out?"

Arthur took all of this information in, curious but detached as he put the man back on the ground, gently dropping him into the chair he'd vacated once Arthur made his entrance.

"If you move," Arthur promised, "I'm going to hurt you. If you call your fellows for help, I'm going to hurt you."

The man nodded and huddled in his chair, watching the door as Ariadne and Michelle entered. His eyes bugged out when he saw Michelle.

"Oh god, no."

"What is it, Tim?" Michelle said, eyes narrowed. "Feeling sorry for the hell you people put me through? Feeling sorry for chaining me up once I broke free from the damned delusions?"

"Keep calm," Ariadne cautioned her, watching as Arthur moved to the glass and stared inside.

"Why is it so dark in there?" he asked the man who Michelle identified as Tim.

"It doesn't like the light," Tim supplied. "It likes the dark much better."

Arthur stared through the glass and didn't see anything. "Let's turn on the lights anyway."

Tim looked so frightened when Arthur suggested it that Arthur paused. The inside of this room had its own lamp like the ones in the tunnel. The enclosure had to have it's own means of lighting. With a name like _the nest_ , there had to be some form of electricity to provide heat.

"What could you be learning if you keep it sedated and hooked up to a PASIV? Why would you risk so much?"

But Tim didn't have the answers Arthur wanted; he could tell from the way the man flinched and huddled in on himself. He was a drone, he was just a worker bee.

Arthur had already taken down Randy. But how many others were living underground? Who had been taken under with the Vord Queen and had their minds warped?

There was silence in the room. It had a strange quality, and when he looked around, he noticed two things had happened.

All eyes were on the glass enclosure, the thickened walls dug deep into the earth, fused into place. There was no door. There was no way in. It was like a coffin that any person could look into if they wanted. First, there was a noise from the PASIV device outside of the enclosure, Arthur didn't have to look at the timer to see it had reached zero. There was a flickering from within the enclosure and a light went on as if it was coordinated to go on with the once the timer had reached zero. Before the light went on, Arthur hadn't been sure if they'd set up a bed or a cot for the creature to lay on as it slept underground, using the PASIV.

The second thing to occur was the appearance of the the creature.

It was standing in front of the glass, pressed so close- alien with multifaceted eyes, beautiful and strange as it stared at them without blinking. The creature was the size of a child. Dressed in a hospital gown, the creature was thin and deceptively weak. Though it had the physical appearance of a young, this _alien_ girl raised one hand, fingers tipped with green chitin claws, and pressed it against the glass. The Vord Queen, obviously awake, made direct eye contact with Arthur then shifted its gaze to look over Arthur's shoulder. It took Arthur a moment to realize that the Vord Queen was looking at Michelle.

Michelle made a pained noise deep in her throat, taking her fingers and gouging neat lines down her cheeks as she was unable to break away from the Vord Queen's gaze. She'd watercrafted her fingernails into the sharp tools Arthur had toyed with but ignored in favor of earthcrafting Tim.

When Ariadne noticed Michelle harming herself, she gasped and tried to stop her. She didn't get very far.

Michelle was moving forwards, bloody nails extended, ready to fight. When Ariadne tried to stop her, Michelle struck her across the face, nearly backhanding her to the side hard enough that Ariadne tumbled against the near wall.

"Michelle!" Arthur said, stepping in her line of sight, blocking the Vord Queen from view. "What are you doing! You said you were going to help us, come on!"

Michelle looked at him, her eyes wide with pain and a fractured determination. "She needs me. She needs me! Mother wants out!"

And then she picked up a chair and tried to break the glass. Before it shattered, Arthur had already felt the collar singing to him the familiar song of _get away and come back to me, get away and come back to me, keep Ariadne safe._

Because Arthur had learned everything he cared to learn about this; the dreamers could be controlled, Michelle was a sleeper cell. The Vord Queen was going to be following after them soon. The only emotion he could feel coming from the bizarre creature, it's thoughts flying faster than any other being's he'd had a chance to listen or mentally overhear. All it was feeling was _free_.

The shards of glass were flying, and Arthur had already rushed to Ariadne's side, taking her hand and tugging her out of the room.

"Run!" Arthur yelled to her, pulling her hard as she struggled to get her wits back, still stumbling from the blow to the head Michelle had given her.

A piercing shriek followed after them and Arthur refused to look behind him to see which followed him out- Michelle or the wakened Vord.


	9. Chapter 9

A.N: Short chapter because I can't sleep after my crummy doctor's appointment.

Their panting breaths echoed in the tunnel, but the sound of their footsteps were muffled as they raced through the winding passages, back the way they'd come, back to the open air.

Using the training they'd done together during the Fischer job, both Arthur and Ariadne could race this way for several miles without stopping to rest, calling on their earth furies to give them the stamina and strength to handle the strain.

"If she closed her fist, she'd have knocked me out cold," Ariadne said as she touched the sore spot on her cheek. "What made her turn on us, Arthur? Why did she do that?"

"I made a mistake when I read her," Arthur resolutely kept his gaze on what was ahead while listening for the sounds of either the Vord Queen or Michelle following after them. "I must have missed it; the change in her was too sudden...the Vord must have left something behind in Michelle's mind, something she could have reached out and used to drag Michelle back under her power."

An armed guard entered the tunnel from one of the crafted rooms. Arthur spotted the glint of a collar on the man's neck and acted quickly, lashing out with an aircrafter's speed and knocking the collard one unconscious as he ran past. He didn't have time to really fight a man under the thrall of a collar. He had to get to the open air and give Eames the signal!

Not wanting to slow herself down, Ariadne didn't look behind her as she ran. "That's not going to be the only one we run into, is it?"

"Don't know, I just want to get out of the ground."

They heard another shriek, distant, but still uncomfortably close while they were still trying to find the exit from the tunnels to the phony office and the outside. But there it was!

No guards were posted on the slope, but a quick pulse of from his earth fury told Arthur that there was one person waiting in the office.

A quick glance at Ariadne informed Arthur that she'd dropped the length of chain, possibly when Michelle hit her or maybe when she started to run with Arthur.

Together, they ran up the slope, burst through the doorway to the office, and faced the person left there, possibly to guard the exits.

Arthur forced himself not to stop running. The door to the outside world was right over there! All he had to do was grab Nash by the shirt collar, ignore the way he squawked and failed, eyes widening in fear as Arthur dragged him out of his chair and continued towards the door with Ariadne followed after him.

"Oh, my god-" Nash began to say as Arthur grabbed him, cutting the client off mid-word.

"Shut up, Nash."

"I can't believe it, you're alive!" Nash exclaimed anyway as Arthur broke down the door and pulled him through it, Ariadne following after him, blinking into the sunlight and shading her eyes after her time in the tunnels.

"I said, shut up," Arthur reiterated as he dumped the man on the ground and took a deep breath. "Okay, Ariadne, get ready to help me bury this place."

Nash scrambled off the ground as Arthur took Ariadne's hand.

"But what about Michelle?" Nash yelped as Arthur and Ariadne ignored him to focus on their furies.

Reaching down into the earth, Arthur and Ariadne systematically collapsed the tunnel system, destroyed the cells, the earth rumbling as they worked together. Nash watched ground move, heard the sound of rock and dirt spilling back into the places carved out by crafters.

"She's still down there, isn't she?" He cried and tried to tug on Arthur's arm, trying and failing to get his attention.

"If you run, you might have a chance to escape her," Arthur said, voice soft and distant as he concentrated on his crafting.

Ariadne broke her crafting and leaned heavily against Arthur's side. "I can't do anymore, Arthur. I don't feel well."

"Crafting sickness," Arthur said, opening his eyes and taking stock of their surroundings. "Now it's time for the signal."


	10. Chapter 10

A.N: Little chapter with more to come. Sorry for errors, but the upcoming semester makes writing hard.

Arthur shrugged Nash off, finally having to pry the other man's fingers off his arm. He gave Nash a shove and instructed him to either stay or get moving, but not to touch him.

"Why?" Nash said through grit teeth, staying away from Arthur and not daring to take another step closer to the point man who gently pushed Ariadne aside and instructed her to take a seat in the dirt.

Arthur sighed and ignored Nash to reach out to Spot and focus. The air was still, there was no breeze, but Arthur didn't need to take off just yet. After this part was done, sure, he'd fly off with Ariadne because it wasn't likely that both of them would be capable of making the run.

He called on his fury, and the wind wolf manifested next to Arthur's side, the fury's coat tinged tan with the particles of dirt in the air. Spot growled, and the noise translated as the sound of clouds crashing together and the wind before the breaking of a storm.

"It's alright," Arthur softly said to his fury as he reached out with one hand to lay it atop the fury's head. His fingers didn't sink through the fury's form; in the open air unencumbered by stone, dirt, or metal, Spot was at his strongest. Their bond as crafter and primary fury only made it stronger. "We'll call Eames after this."

Working together with his fury, Arthur used his crafting to tighten the air around him; Spot began to howl. The pressure increased, the air becoming sharp and electrically charged. Recognizing the sensation, Ariadne tried to move a little further away, but Nash kept smoothing back his hair, which began to lift in response to Arthur's crafting. It was clear he had no idea what was going on.

"What are you doing?" Nash demanded Arthur, who was standing with his eyes closed, hands open and held away from his body as Spot continued to howl.

"Step back," Ariadne hissed to him, drained from the crafting during the escape, but rallying. "Just step back, please! He could electrocute you if you don't get out of the way!"

Nash's eyes widened comically and he hurriedly took several steps away from the point man. Arthur smiled a little and softly said to his architect, "I wasn't going to electrocute him, Ariadne, I was going to miss him with the bolt."

Then Arthur called the lightning, directing an arc of electricity that appeared to manifest between his hands before the point man directed both it and his fury into the sky, carrying the bolt of lightning into the air where it would visibly spark and crackle above them. It was short, but vivid. Just the signal he'd agreed on with Eames as they weren't sure if they could trust communicating through either watercrafting or aircrafting.

There was an unsettling shifting under the earth, that they all felt; there was no disguising the reaction of the two crafters who could sense the disturbance with their earthcrafting, and Nash's confusion as he felt something causing the ground to move.

"We have to go now," Arthur said, reaching for Ariadne's hand and pulling her to her feet.

"What is it?" Nash asked, uncertainly watching the ground, unable to feel what the crafters could. Senses extended, Arthur was able to do one last good deed for Nash and shoved the man away in time to avoid the chitin tipped fingers of the Vord Queen who forced her hand to burst from the earth and reach for the open air, narrowly missing the client!

"Run! Nash, just run!"

Nash finally listened to Arthur and ran away, not caring the direction or destination so long as it got him as far from the alien hand that was scrapping through the dirt, fingers digging in and _raking_ the earth in an effort to escape the hasty, earthcrafted grave.

Ariadne reached one hand out, directing what remained of her strength towards the earth surrounding the Vord Queen's hand and called her fury to immobilize it.

"Ariadne we have to move. We need to run away, not try and fight it!"

The earth fury named for Pratchett's world turtle sluggishly swimmed up through the dirt, answering Ariadne's call. The turtle's diamond eyes winked in the sun as it forced the earth to harden around the alien creature's wrist, guarding the place the creature had attempted to escape through.

"Okay," Ariadne answered Arthur, swaying on the spot and holding on tightly to Arthur for balance. "That's just to slow it down a little-"

Neither was prepared when the Vord Queen's other hand reached up out of the tightly packed dirt, unhindered by the earth fury's efforts, to break Ariadne's fury into pieces of stone and dirt in a show of immense strength.

The strain to her crafting, the trauma of having her fury being _broken,_ caused Ariadne to her knees, faint and weak. While Arthur struggled to get Ariadne back on her feet, the Vord Queen began to dig her self out of the ground, Ariadne's broken fury no longer manipulating the earth and holding the creature back.

Scrambling to reach something on the ground, Ariadne managed to pick up one of the broken pieces that had made up A'tuin. Arthur saw that Ariadne managed to snatch one of the diamonds, one of A'tuin's eyes, before allowing Arthur to scoop her up into his arms and call his fury to take to the air. She hid her face against Arthur's neck, clinging to the point man who was set on flying towards the agreed upon location, to the place he knew Eames was waiting for him.

The collar on his arm rewarded him for his care of Ariadne, for his efforts to get back to Eames. Arthur ignored it and focused on the goal, on the job.


	11. Chapter 11

A.N: In 2016 I wrote a vague sequel to "show me your fury" for my NaNo. I've edited, made additions, and rewritten specific parts and have finally had the time to sit down and write something that looks like a conclusion for this story. For a long time I've viewed this particular story as one that stood in the way of anything else I chose to write. If it didn't stop me from writing something else it certainly made me feel guilty for it! So here it is- fractured, nonsensical, but still something that qualifies as an ending.

Any additional stories will be considered much, much later. I'm too tired for this series right now. I apologize for the long wait.

Eames called to his fury and used it to bend the light and create a sightcrafting. It wasn't as strong as it should be but after all the practice and theory Arthur had drilled into Eames to prepare him for the flight lessons, it was good enough for him to see the partially indistinct figure in the air. It was Arthur, approaching fast with Ariadne in his arms.

Yusuf looked over Eames's shoulder and grit his teeth at what he saw.

"Is she hurt?"

"I don't know."

"She looks like she's in pain! Is- is she struggling?"

Eames took a deep breath and listened to the crackling of the walkie-talkies. Saito's men were relaying information- that Arthur and Ariadne had escaped. That something was attempting to follow after them.

Looking through the crafting, Eames couldn't see anything following them by air. He dropped the aircrafting and sank to one knee, pressing one hand against the ground and calling to his earth fury.

Yusuf lingered by Eames's side, still watching the sky nervously. "What are you doing?"

"Listening for something else," Eames said, his eyes shut as he waited. "The furies in this area aren't friendly. It's harder to listen with mine, so please be quiet."

"But why are you doing that? Why aren't you still keeping watch for Arthur? For Ariadne?"

"Just get ready to grab Ariadne from Arthur when they're in range," Eames said, brow furrowing as he pulled his hand away from the ground. "It's coming. It's following Arthur from the ground...it's running after them."

There was more crackling exchanges between various groups, each standing sentinel and watching over a specific space surrounding the place Arthur and Ariadne had fled from, and where the creature had emerged. The stories were flooding in now.

 _It dug itself out of the ground._

 _It avoided the armed men and women closest to the site._

 _No bloodshed, yet._

 _No direct confrontation._

 _It was too fast!_

Saito didn't ask for suggestions. "Prepare for defensive maneuvers," Saito said to one of his men.

"But sir," the man said, clutching his gun as tightly as a totem. "An evacuation would be-"

"Useless without the information we came for," Saito calmly said. "Arthur has it. We wait for him to arrive, and then we run. Anything Arthur or Ariadne found while at the site could help us win the fight later on."

Eames agreed, but the window for securing their two team members without facing the Vord Queen was getting narrower by the second. Even with the unhelpful local furies to contend with, his was able to confirm two things about the Vord Queen. That she was frighteningly fast and indeed heading in their direction, but also appeared to not have furies of her own. An interesting, potentially useful piece of information if there was a fight. He wasn't sure if Arthur knew that.

Then Eames heard a familiar voice whispering to him. _Here! Coming straight to you!_ Arthur's aircrafted voice said, urgent but tired from flying closer to the ground. Eames remembered Arthur's explanation from so many months ago. That flying closer to the ground to scope out the terrain was exhausting. To get a better view without wasting energy it would be easiest to fly at a higher level and use sightcraftings to examine the ground.

"Clear a path!" Eames called to everyone within arm's length of him, reducing the risk of Arthur flying into someone not noticing the obvious signs of an approaching crafter.

Eames could hear the sound of Arthur's windstream, and then called to Yusuf who was standing well out of the way, but in the perfect place to catch Ariadne.

"Reach out for her now!"

The surrounding trees were whipped by the sudden burst of air as Arthur appeared, sinking his feet into the ground as he landed with his fury still propelling him forwards. He literally threw Ariadne to the chemist as he went past.

Surprised, Yusuf dropped his club in time to grab an armful of struggling, tearful Ariadne, who wound her arms around his neck and clung. It wasn't till her feet were planted firmly on the ground that she stopped shaking.

"I'm never flying again," Ariadne whispered urgently as she clung to him.

Arthur had cut the windstream as soon as he delivered Ariadne, finally coming to a stop in front of Eames. Unable to ignore the call and command of the collar on his arm, Arthur's knees buckled when he met Eames's eyes. The pleasure of the mission being completed sang through his veins, the collar irresistibly demanding his submission to Eames. That he should get on his knees, right there, and wait for his next command.

 _Because Arthur was good. He'd gotten her back there. She was safe. They were both safe._

Arthur wouldn't get to his knees, wouldn't writhe or beg. Instead of taking a purely helpless submissive pose in front of _everyone_ , Arthur made it appear natural to drop to one knee in front of Eames, head bowed as he took deep breaths and waited for the collar to be removed before it could correct him with pain. To others who didn't know the power of a discipline collar, it would look like Arthur was just too exhausted to straighten up or stand.

But Saito knew, and he respectfully didn't say or do anything to break that illusion.

Eames noticed Arthur's effort; the tension in his back, shoulders, and jaw. Arthur's downcast eyes were squeezed shut. Eames held his arms out gesturing that everyone else should stay away before he took a similar position in front of Arthur.

He touched the collar and unlocked the deviously designed band of metal. It opened with an audible _click_ , the band unlocking and falling from Arthur's arm. Eames picked it up and tossed it aside so he could pull Arthur into his arms.

"You were right," Arthur whispered to Eames.

"This was a horrible idea," Eames answered. "Never agree to do things like this again. I don't care if we both understood the risks or put in half a dozen precautions. We'll never do that again."

Arthur patted Eames on the shoulder, his strength returning to him now in a way that he hadn't exactly felt while the collar bound him to certain behaviors, certain actions. His freedom was a welcome weight.

"It worked. Eames, we don't have to do it again, but I had to have you release me before the Vord Queen arrives."

Then Arthur told him everything he had learned, as scant as it was. "The people taken under into a dream with the Vord Queen are changed. Michelle spent some time thinking she was one of them, the offspring of this queen. But it's sterile, Eames. It can't create anything at all. It only dreams of it."

Eames tightened his hold on Arthur. "And I've experienced those dreams. I may not have been put in _her_ dream, but exposure is still exposure. If it happens, darling-"

"No."

"If it happens," Eames continued, "I want you to do what you have to do to stop me. You're the stronger crafter, Arthur. You can stop me."

Before Arthur could say anything in reply, he heard the shriek of the Vord Queen.

Arthur was out of time to warn anyone.

The childlike Vord Queen was already entering the space they'd cleared for base camp, her multifaceted eyes focused on the ones who had escaped her. Arthur and Eames stood and made themselves ready, even as Yusuf and Ariadne began to give the creature wide berth.

Ariadne had taken Yusuf's improvised club, still unsteady on her feet but ready to fight if she had to. Yusuf reached out to her but she waved him off.

"She broke my A'tuin, Yusuf! She broke him! I might still be unsteady, I might still hurt, but I'm not going to let this thing hurt anyone else!"

And instead of forcing Ariadne behind him so he could play he-man rescuer, Yusuf nodded and extended his hand out to the trees nearby and called on his fury. The tree, though thin limbed and weak, reached out towards the Vord Queen and grasped her arms, holding her in place.

"You can get started any time!" the chemist called to Arthur and Eames, one hand extended towards the Vord Queen who was tugging on her bonds with a detached curiosity. She pulled and the branches tightened their grip, responding to Yusuf's command, controlled by his will and how he tightly clenched his fist.

After that it happened so quickly. It took moments really. The Vord Queen stopped pulling on her bonds and instead looked over at Eames. Arthur sensed _something_ coming from her- another one of those lightning fast thoughts that Arthur was aware of through his water crafting. She didn't gesture or speak. But Eames suddenly stood very still.

"Eames?" Arthur said, waiting to see the awareness come back to Eames's expression. But the forger didn't speak. "Eames, look at me."

Eames didn't look at him. He immediately called on his fury and directed an attack, not at Arthur, but towards Yusuf. Eames used one hand to direct a wave of earth towards the chemist.

"Drop the crafting and run," Arthur ordered him, calling on his own earth fury to divert the flow of heavy earth and rock that could bury Yusuf alive of if the man didn't get out of the way! Arthur grit his teeth, forcing the words out as he dropped the crafting and then ran at Eames.

Yusuf dodged out of the weakened wave of earth's path, grabbed Ariadne's hand and using a different crafting to cloak them from view. His woodcrafting forced the dead and living plant life in the area to camouflage them, so at least for the moment they couldn't be easily spotted. If Arthur continued to draw Eames's attention away from the others, the man wouldn't be able to use his earth craft to find any person who still touched the ground.

Arthur tackled Eames, briefly breaking Eames's connection with his fury and giving others enough time to arm themselves or get out of the way.

Arthur was on top of Eames, pinning him to the ground, reaching for his wrists to restrict his movements.

"You need to fight her!"

"I thought I said to 'do anything to stop me'?"

"What does it look like I'm doing?" Arthur replied, cursing as Eames commanded the weeds to slip up Arthur's arms, forcing Arthur's to pull his hands away from Eames's wrists and try to bat the woodcrafted weeds off of his body. But the weeds became a tough fiber that wound itself around Arthur's wrists, tightening them together. When Arthur noticed the position he'd been placed in he wasn't sure if he could laugh about it.

After all, it was intensely reminiscent of that instructional fight he and Eames had participated in during the plotting of Fischer's inception. That time was brimming with the tension typical in their relationship, fueled by their recent reunion and their agreement not to jump into anything just then (that they wanted to, that they wanted to try again, but not just yet- not until the job was over). They were together now, and aside from the Vord Queen and looming sense of disaster, they were great. They knew each other so well...Eames knew that Arthur would counter him, obviously. And calling on his fury to put Arthur at a disadvantage similar to the one from their past fight would obviously remind Arthur of another way of stopping Eames.

Looking at Eames's face, maintaining eye contact, Arthur stopped what he was doing and thought it through.

He could sense the riot of cold, detached thought from the Vord Queen behind him. He could sense Eames; his emotions running high but with a little something extra getting in the way. Something inhibiting him, something that made him stop, perhaps the Vord Queen's influence on Eames.

Not quite a drone. Not quite a soldier. But Eames was good enough at acting like it, doing enough to satisfy that claim, so the Vord Queen had yet to react. But she could still...

Eames didn't speak. Arthur touched Eames and felt the other man work his crafting again, loosening the fibers that had forced his wrists together, immobilizing his hands and reducing his crafting. Arthur felt Eames's emotions as clearly as he could his own. There was fear, there was worry, but most of all there was love.

Arthur called on his water fury and forced Eames to go to sleep, dropping the man into unconsciousness where the Vord Queen couldn't control him.

The point man then turned to the Vord Queen and did something that would either blow up in his face and get them all killed, or buy them the time they needed.

Arthur could feel the worry from his team under the woodcrafting, the tension of the armed men, the silent calculating of Saito. Eames may have been dreaming.

And most of all he could feel the strange, otherworldly Vord. There was depth to her feelings, clinical and cold, but still tinged with a strange loneliness that Arthur couldn't ignore. Michelle had said has much, didn't she?

Arthur stood and stepped away from the forger, showing the Vord Queen his empty hands, speaking slowly and keeping himself open. No water crafted shields so he could sense all that he could from her, and if it mattered, so she could sense everything from him as well. For all they were able to understand from the histories, and the scant amount of information they had gained through this mission, they didn't know if this Vord was capable of using fury craft. If something had changed its basic structure, how it functioned, and so on.

He couldn't be swayed by the fact that it looked like a child. Small, weak, but still so terrifyingly powerful.

"I know what you want," Arthur said to the Vord Queen. He waited for a moment, trying to map what reaction he was getting. Her face was impassive and strange.

"You don't belong here. You've been changed. You can't fulfill your purpose."

And now Arthur was going to take a calculated risk.

"You've been dreaming of a world where the Vord have achieved that purpose. Making all things the same, no individuality, just the hive mind. You are not suited to this world...without the ability to breed, you can't survive. Taking over the dreamsharers who enter your dream, forcing them to spread it to other dreamers, adopting them as your own? This doesn't serve your purpose. Let them go and I'll fix the problem."

There was only silence from the Vord Queen.

The tension began to rise, Arthur began to question this course of action.

" _How?_ "

The Vord Queen's voice was soft. Her voice was strange with an undercurrent of an insect-like buzz. Then it spoke again, but more insistent.

" _How?_ "

Arthur's fist tightened and he thought about the possible answers he could give but only had one. The one that this Vord dream infestation problem kept circling back to.

"If you let the dreamers go, I'll find a way to send you back."

He had his answer ready for what would be her next question. He didn't even wait for the creature to speak.

"I'll find a way to send you back because I'm the best point man in dreamshare."

The moment stretched on and on, till finally, the Vord Queen agreed.

* * *

Afterwards, when things had more or less become less chaotic, the Vord Queen peaceably went into what was referred to as "protective custody" while Arthur worked to make good on his promise.

The conversation between Arthur and Eames went like this:

"What?"

"If I explain it again, Eames, I won't believe it myself. I keep checking my totem. I keep expecting to be in Limbo. But this is our reality now. I made an agreement with the Vord Queen in exchange for the release of all afflicted dreamers."

Eames blinked at Arthur.

"Promise me something, Arthur."

"Anything."

"Kill her as soon as possible."

"I never said I wouldn't," Arthur said. "I'll give her what she wants. She may have spent god knows how long dreaming with a PASIV and infecting others during that study, but I doubt she's had much experience with Limbo. She'll get the world she wants in unstructured dream space."

But how that would be accomplished would be discussed during another conversation, at another time.


End file.
